


Poison & Wine

by myloveiamthespeedofsound



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And apologizes, Angst, Everyone Needs Hugs, F/M, Natasha Feels, Natasha will also need some hugs, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, See chapter notes for content warnings, So much angst, Steve Feels, Steve Needs a Hug, The Author Regrets Everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-05-16 11:23:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 36,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5826718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myloveiamthespeedofsound/pseuds/myloveiamthespeedofsound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the years after his re-emergence into the world, Steve Rogers finds himself living a very lonely and isolated life.  Unable to truly embrace his new life and the future he woke up in until a chance meeting with a woman gives him something to grasp onto.  Unfortunately things are not always what they seem, and the woman he finds himself quickly falling for might not be all she says she is.  </p><p>Canon divergent and set before the events of the first Avengers movie, with Steve having been found several years before he is in the movies, and Natasha not with S.H.I.E.L.D.  Title of work from the Civil Wars song.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Steve loved a lot of things about his new home in Washington, DC. Even if things in the world in general had changed dramatically in the sixty odd years he’d spent frozen in the Arctic. There was never any shortage of people in the DC, all so busy in their own lives that it was more than easy for him to walk around virtually unnoticed - something that reminded him of his years in New York City as a kid. It was nice, given the attention that had been paid to his life since he’d been found and subsequently unfrozen almost three years prior. It was comforting to be able to slip through the city crowds mostly unnoticed on his downtime - to be able to grab a spot at a cafe and sketch the world around him without having someone come up to him.

He’d adjusted, sort of. Enough to fake it at least. He knew how to work the technology S.H.I.E.L.D gave him that seemed to change weekly, he knew the political boundaries that had been drawn and redrawn multiple times while he slept, he knew how to navigate and blend in, look like someone who belonged in this era instead of forced into it. He couldn’t quite find the sense that he _did_ belong though, couldn’t quite shake the ever present loneliness that seeped into his bones and his very being. He had a few contacts left from his old life, some in better shape than others, but it wasn’t the same. They had whole histories he had missed out - and what hurt the most, though he wouldn’t have denied them it - lives they had carved out for themselves without him. Which was especially tough in Peggy’s case. He had what one would call a camaraderie with the men on his team, but it wasn’t like it had been with Commandos, and aside from a few well intentioned invitations that he had subsequently politely declined, hadn’t extended much beyond the lines of work.

For the most part his life had turned into a cycle of work, sleep when he could and repeat. He struggled with a sense of loss, with the guilt that still plagued him over Bucky and all the others lost under his watch. He hated the cold and he woke up in the sweat of a nightmare most often than not. Fury had tried to set him up with S.H.I.E.L.D counselors and therapists, he’d been diagnosed with PTSD and a few other job related disorders, but had stopped seeking treatment. He figured as long as he functioned well enough to do his job, well, that was good enough now wasn’t it.

Steve was so lost in such thoughts that he didn’t notice the young woman step out of the dance studio. It didn’t much help that she was distracted too - having stepped out backwards while she said goodbye to someone in the studio, and the two of them managed to run right into each other.

Steve dropped his sketchbook and pencil roll to grab her arm lightly to steady her as they collided. “Are you okay, ma’am?” he asked, genuine concern in his voice.

“Oh my God, I’m so, so, sorry,” the woman said and straightened up to look at Steve.

She was beautiful, he noted, which was a rarity for him to do so. It’d been nearly three years since he’d realized the closest thing he’d ever had to a relationship with a woman was lost, like so many things in his life, and it’d been a hard time making peace with that. Some of the men on his team often tried to set him up with their friend, a co-worker, some cousin, but Steve always politely denied. The instant attraction he felt to this woman left him a little rattled, and a faint blush spread on his face though he supposed it could be blamed on all but running the poor girl over. He took in her features, bare of the make up most women of the era tended to wear, her own skin slightly flushed as well, blonde hair swept up into a bun on the top of her head. Wide green eyes, plump lips that sent his blood rushing through his body in a way he hadn’t felt in years.

“No, no.. my fault, completely my fault,” he stumbled over when he finally found his voice again and offered the woman a warm smile. “I should have been paying better attention,” he assured her and realized only then that his hand still lingered on her arm. He dropped it quickly and then bent to pick up his things. “You're okay though?” He asked again.

She nodded and slid her bag back up on her shoulder. “Nothing hurt but my pride,” she said lightly and gave Steve a smile. She seemed to debate with herself for a moment as she looked up at him and then offered her hand. “I'm Natalie,” she introduced herself.

Steve shook her hand. “Steve,” he said in return. “And I swear I don't make a habit out of running people over in the street,” he added on. He really did feel terrible.

“Nice to meet you, Steve who does not make a habit out of running people over in the street,” she replied with a teasing smile.

Steve smiled back at her. He could hear Peggy in the back of his head from their last visit; you met any pretty girls lately, Steve. She was so determined that he put himself out there, find someone to keep him company outside of his work. He knew it was just because she worried about him - and of everyone it was Peggy who could see that his adjustment wasn’t going as well as he pretended. Would it be so bad, he wondered, to just _try_. He realized that he most likely looked like an awkward idiot by now just standing there looking at her and cleared his throat before he spoke. “Can I - “ come on Rogers, he chided himself, it’s not like you’re asking the girl to marry you. He smiled a bit sheepishly and nodded toward a small coffee place just a few doors down. “Buy you a cup of coffee?” he asked.

Natalie nodded. “Sure, that’d be nice.”

They walked to the cafe, Steve paid for their drinks and they settled into a table in the corner. He watched her take a sip from her cup - backlit in the late afternoon sun, and he’s trying his hardest not to get lost in the line of her neck, the dip of her collarbone and the skin left bare as the shoulder of the oversized sweater she wore over what was clearly a leotard slipped off slightly. He adverted his gaze and took a drink before he glanced back at her. “So, you’re a dancer?” he asked curiously.

Natalie shook her head. “No, not really. I mean - I _was_ \- ” she paused for a moment. “An injury halted my professional career though,” she said and shrugged lightly. “I teach now, which I must admit, I actually love just as much,” she continued with a soft smile, her fingers wrapped around the warmth of the cup. “And you?” she asked and glanced up at him.

“Am I dancer?” Steve asked with a teasing tone.

Natalie laughed softly and shook her head. “No, what do you do?” she clarified. A small pause and then she smirked. “Smartass.”

Steve let the question linger for a moment. He wasn’t quite sure how to answer. Somehow saying my day job is being Captain America felt like it would come off a little pretentious. Natalie seemed to notice the hesitation though and she smiled. “I mean other than saving the world,” she amended, letting him off the hook.

He still paused and shrugged. “Not much, really,” he admitted truthfully - and where had _that_ come from. He was usually so much more guarded, but there was something about the gentle warmth in her eyes, the way she looked at him like she genuinely _cared_ what he was about. He paused to take a drink. “Saving the world keeps me pretty busy,” he started. “But other than that I draw, paint sometimes, catch up on several decades of music, art, and movies.” He wondered if it sounded as lonely as he thought it did. How pathetic he must sound right then.

If she judged the fact that every activity he rattled off was of a solitary nature she hid it well he observed, and for that he was grateful. Natalie seemed to mull it over and before the corner of her mouth tugged upwards. “But you don’t dance?” she asked lightly, a slender brow raised just so.

Steve shook his head. “No, I definitely do not dance,” he answered with a chuckle.

“Why not?” she asked. “I thought everyone from back in the day loved to dance.” She gave a little smirk at back in the day, and he immediately liked how she was quick to offer a joke that somehow managed to feel anything but cutting at the fact he was a good old fourties boy.

He gave her a sheepish smile and shook his head. “Never learned how,” he admitted.

Natalie made a show of shaking her head with a tsk tsk noise. “Well now, that won’t do,” she chided with a flirtatious tone. “I’m going to have to teach you how to dance, Steve,” she declared.

“Oh you are, are you?” he asked with a small chuckle. “I forewarn you, that might be an impossible task,” he added.

She smiled warmly. “Good thing for you, impossible tasks are my forte,” she paused, “besides, you can’t be any worse than the five years olds,” she pointed out.

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” he retorted with a grin on his face.

They settled into conversation, turned it toward the things he’d been discovering since he’d woken up in the future. He asked a bit about her time as a professional dancer. It was the most Steve had talked to a person outside of S.H.I.E.L.D and anyone from his past since he’d woken up and it surprised him how easy the conversation came with Natalie - how she guided him effortlessly between topics and never let a pause linger past the point of comfortable. There’d been nothing particularly deep about it, mostly the surface things one discussed as they got to know someone, but it was a huge step for him none the less. He’d been so lost in the conversation that when his phone buzzed across the table it actually startled him slightly. He gave Natalie an apologetic look and looked at the device. He found himself disappointed to see the message from headquarters requesting him to come in.

He set the phone down and looked at Natalie with another apologetic look. “I’m sorry, I have to take off,” he said. He paused as the realization of how much he wanted to see her again hit him, but he found himself a bit lost as to how to approach it. Jump out of a plane? Sure that was easy. Asking a girl if he could call her for dinner, well, that was more than just a little terrifying.

As if reading his apprehension Natalie reached for his sketchbook on the table. She flipped to a clean page and slid a pencil out from the roll. She smiled at him and wrote her number down. “Call me,” she said and slid the book back towards him. “I’d love to do this again.”

Steve ducked his head as he was sure he had some ridiculous grin on his face at that. “Me too,” he said after a moment when he looked back at her. He held her gaze for a moment before he grabbed his things and stood. He hesitated before he moved to leave and looked down at her. “Thank you, Natalie,” he said sincerely. He knew she probably didn’t, couldn’t, understand what their afternoon had meant to him - that the past few hours had been the most normal he’d felt in years. He gave her one last smile before he turned and walked out of the cafe.

She watched him leave and then leaned back into her chair. She gave it ten minutes to be sure he wouldn’t run back in for anything. Content he was well on his way back to S.H.I.E.L.D she reached into her bag and pulled out a phone.

 

 

> established contact with target.  
>  update to follow.  
>  nr.

Natalia waited with a blank expression for a confirmation reply before she dropped the phone back into her bag. Steve Rogers had been exactly what they had briefed her on - a man out of time and trying to hide it well. As someone who hid everything for a living it had been more than easy to see through the attempt. He was lonely, lost, and perfectly willing to accept her as a warm, friendly, woman who might pick away at that loneliness. She shouldered her bag and finished up the last bit of coffee in her cup. It had long since gone cold, but she didn’t mind the bitter taste. Natalia stood and gave a last glance around the little cafe before she disappeared into the streets.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song mentioned at the end of the chapter is the Iron and Wine version of [Such Great Heights](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCYWymG9fSs).

 When Steve returned from the mission five days after his impromptu coffee, his apartment was exactly how he had left it. Empty. It was nothing new. It had been since S.H.I.E.L.D had given it to him. Sure he had things - his art supplies in various corners of the rooms, a few photos that had been given to him from his old life. He had a stack of books and movies, he had a record player. He had furniture that he hadn’t picked but did the job just fine and was better quality than anything he’d ever had before in his life. It did, and always had though, lacked a certain sense of home. It was a place to sleep, a place to exist instead of really live, and it never quite felt like anything more than that. In a lot of ways it mirrored his life. He’d stepped into something, he’d been handed it - nothing was of his choosing and even now he still felt like a stranger in his own apartment, in his own life. He’d never been a particularly messy person, but it was almost to an extreme degree now. Everything had a place and everything was always in its place. He rarely let a plate or glass sit longer than an hour in the sink, he never left anything in any sense of disarray, as though he wasn’t _living_ here, he was just taking up space and any moment someone would come to take it away.

So there was never any true sense of coming home, no real relief when he walked in the door and set his keys down. It was just another room in a series of rooms that held things that were never truly _his_. Steve dropped his shield to its spot against the backside of the couch and stood in the space between the living room and kitchen. His eyes fell to the sketchbook on the kitchen island illuminated by the pot light above, the only thing not exactly where it should be, and he moved slowly toward it. He pulled the book closer, still open to the page where Natalie had scrawled her number. He’d thought of her while he was on mission, the quiet moments of downtime, the hours in the safe houses while they waited to move. The image of her bathed in sunlight with her fingers around a cup as she coaxed a laugh from him had danced around in the corners of his mind and filled him with warmth as he sat out long hours keeping watch over his men.

He glanced around kitchen and suddenly the emptiness of his life weighed so heavily on him. He suddenly felt cold and hollow and found himself looking to the clock on the stove. It was well past ten and he figured too late to make a phone call. The idea though of letting it rest, of letting himself spend a sleepless night talking himself out of it didn’t sit well. He pulled his phone out and opted for something in between. A text. She could ignore it if it was too late, but at the very least she’d have his number and he wouldn’t give himself a chance to lose his nerve.

> _Hey, it’s Steve. Sorry I didn’t call earlier, was out of the country for a few days. Thanks again for coffee, I had a good time._

He set his phone down and moved to the fridge. He pulled a carton of orange juice and took a drink straight from it as he looked at the contents of his fridge - which were pretty pathetic. He could feel a grumble in his stomach and he chided himself for not stopping to grab a burger on the way home. His phone buzzed across the island and broke the silence of the apartment. Steve moved to pick it up, a smile tugged at his lips when he saw the return text.

> _You do realize you pretty much just apologized to me for not calling because you were too busy saving the world. Careful, soldier, a girl could get used to that._

There was a slight delay before the phone buzzed in his hand again as another text from Natalie popped up.

> _What are you doing right now?_

Before he could even formulate a reply another text popped up.

> _I was going to go get some food. You should come._

She texted an address for a place near him and Steve debated with himself for a moment. He wasn’t this person, he wasn’t the guy who met a girl late at night. Then again he wasn’t the type of guy that met a girl in general. He stared down at the address and let out a small sigh. Later, when all was said and done and the truth had come to light he’d look back at hate himself in this moment. He’d hate the moment of weakness, the way he’d let his loneliness get the better of him, the way he couldn’t stomach yet another night alone with nothing but his own thoughts to keep him company. Right then though, well, right then he couldn’t help the small smile as he texted back a reply.

> _I’ll be there. See you soon._

It didn’t take him long to make it to the all night diner she’d suggested - and it took even less time for them to fall into the same easy conversation that had dictated their afternoon at the cafe. Before long they’d eaten and settled into their respective sides of the booth with full stomachs and a plate of pie to split between them.

“Is your family close by?” Steve asked her as he took a forkful of the apple pie.

Natalie shook her head lightly. “My parents died when I was fifteen,” she said. The best lies always had an ounce of truth to them. Natalia was an orphan - for all intents and purposes at least - so Natalie was an orphan. More than that, Steve Rogers had lost his father before he had been born, his mother in his early twenties. It would be a bond between them, the pain of losing one's parents young. She would seem lonely, just like he was lonely.

Steve’s expression immediately softened and he kicked himself for bringing it up in the first place. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said genuinely. “What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”

She took a bite of the pie and then folded her hands on the table. “There was a car accident, a drunk driver ran them off the road,” she said plainly, though Steve could see the pain of it behind her eyes. He imagined he had been much the same way when he talked about his Ma, facts were facts but it still hurt.

Unbridled he reached across the table to lay a hand on hers. Hers were impossibly small somehow, warm, and he couldn’t help but wonder if he even had the right to touch them. This beautiful woman who looked up at him with such warmth in her eyes as his hand rested on hers, who the hell was he to think for a minute he was right in _wanting_ her. What could he possible have to give when underneath everything about him that was Captain America there was nothing but a broken shell of a man who had never really belonged anywhere, let alone this future, outside of a war. He was damaged in a way he didn’t even truly understand and every instinct in him told him to _run_ as Natalie held his gaze with her soft eyes. Her hands uncurled under his and she laced her fingers through his. Steve’s breath caught in his throat and he couldn’t remember the last time someone had touched him with affection. Couldn’t remember the last time he felt someone’s skin against his in anything that wasn’t in the middle of a fight or a medic attempting to look him over after one.

Parts of him long since forgotten and abandoned stirred at the feel of her thumb as it rubbed against his skin and he could feel a flush creep up the back of his neck. Without warning his thoughts drifted to the way her hands would feel as they brushed across his face, locked behind his neck with those full lips pressed to his, how easy it would be to lean across the table and _know_ it. How desperately he wanted to know it right then. He wanted to slide into her side of the booth and press her up against the wall like teenagers in the back corner and claim so much more than just this small touch.

His mind conjured up the image of her clavicle and shoulder bare from her sweater, from the first time they sat across from each other - perfectly clear with his photographic memory and it went right to him. How desperately he wanted to pull her outside, feel her arms wrapped around him tight as he drove them back to his apartment on his bike - take her to bed and know her intimately, in all the ways his Catholic upbringing would have him in a confessional for without a ring on her finger. How desperately he wanted to drag his lips across those bare expanses of pale skin that would not leave his mind, to bury himself inside of her and forget even for just a moment that he was so utterly alone in the world - and God, what was the _matter with him_. Was he really that far gone in his own solitude that any ounce of human contact could drive him down a path he shouldn’t go.

Or was it her? Was it something in the way her fingers slid so easily between his that he could lose himself in some romantic notion that they fit together in some ethereal way. Was it the way she looked at him like maybe she’d been lonely too long herself - the way that everything about her radiated that she could, she _did_ , understand how it felt to be alone in a crowded room and wonder if anyone even really gave a damn about you. He barely knew her, but he felt drawn in a way he’d never felt before. He found himself staring at the polish on her nails, the dark red lacquer that was chipped ever so slightly on the edges. He wondered if she would be so quick to lace her fingers through his if she knew the things his hands had done. Would she pull back if she knew his hands had hurt, had killed? Would the warmth in her eyes turn to pity if she knew his hands had never touched a woman the way he wanted to touch her right then.

She gave his hand a small squeeze and pulled hers back to take another bite of the pie before she smiled warmly at him, the moment changed but not gone entirely. “And after that I bounced between various family members until I was accepted into a dance school, moved to New York and now here I am,” she added and leaned her chin in her palm, elbow on the table.

“Here you are,” Steve echoed as he stared across the table at her. He hadn’t felt this type of pull to someone since Peggy - which well it had only been a few years for him was decades in reality.

Once the pie was eaten and the hour turned from sort of late to really late they called it a night. Steve insisted on walking her home, even though it was only a few blocks, but she seemed to appreciate it and linked her arm through his as they walked. He stopped with her in front of her door and ducked his head a little as a nervous smile crossed his lips. “Can I - “ he paused and looked up at her. “I’d like to see you again,” he restarted, and hoped the fact he felt more than a little timid about the whole thing didn’t come through too badly in his voice. “If that’s okay?” he added on quickly.

She smiled up at him from where she leaned against her door. “It’s more than okay,” she answered. She leaned up on her toes, she was impossibly short next to him in a pair of flats, and gently pressed her lips to his cheek. It was chaste, sweet, but seemed to linger with the promise of so much more. He held her gaze when she pulled back and he was sure he had some god awful cheesy smile on his face. “Goodnight, Steve,” Natalie said as she slipped into her apartment, giving him one last look before she closed the door.

Steve lingered outside her door for a moment, unable to wipe the grin off his face, before he turned to leave the apartment building. He felt lighter than he had in years on his bike ride back to his place. He’d barely gotten back into his apartment before he felt his phone buzz.   
  


> _Impossible tasks._  
>  _Tomorrow at 3 at the studio._  
>  _Wear something comfortable._
> 
>  

* * *

 

The next day Steve could only laugh as Natalie placed him in the back of a line of boys on the barre. They all seemed to be in around the six year old mark and many spent a good few minutes of the start of class gawking at the fact Captain America had just crashed. Steve caught Natalie’s eye and at her smirk he ducked his head with a bashful smile. He more than stood out in a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, feet bare because he sure as hell didn’t have the right shoes for this, all six foot four of him in a line with boys that barely cleared his waist at best. He’d catch a few of the moms who lingered watching him, but he really only had eyes for Natalie.

She had endless patience for the group of boys, always with a kind smile when she’d walk over and help one of them with their posture or positioning. It was always a satisfied, but still teasing, smirk when it was his turn. An exaggerated shake of her head as she’d stand before him, her hands on her hip and legs in a perfect turnout, not that Steve really knew what that was. “Turnout, Soldier, better watch that turnout.” She teased him.

He laughed and mimicked her stance. “You think you’re hilarious, don’t you,” he teased back to which she only grinned and moved back to focus on the boys in her class.

It wasn’t a long class, Steve figured most six year olds didn’t have that huge attention spans. There was a commotion when it ended though as most of the boys clammered to get their parents to take a picture of them with Captain America - and Steve obliged happily. He even moved back to the barre and showed off his now perfected turnout with one of the boys who asked for proof that Captain America did ballet - apparently a few of the boys in his school had been given him a hard time about his hobby. Steve caught Natalie’s eye as the boy’s mother got ready to snap the photo and he gave her a smile as she mouthed _thank you_ to him before he looked toward the camera. After photos taken and bits of papers that parents happened to have in their bags signed the studio cleared and Natalie moved to lock up after the last student.

Steve had lingered in the middle of the room and gave a small chuckle when she returned. “You know when you said you were going to teach me to dance that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” he said.

Natalie moved to the stereo set up and hit a few buttons before the music started up again. Steve had no idea who the band was, but it was nice, soft guitars and vocals. She looked back at Steve and smiled. “You did wonderfully though,” she said lightly as she moved closer to him. “I’m surprised you didn’t end up with the number of every single mom before they left,” she said with a small chuckle.

Steve laughed a little at that but shook his head. “It’s alright, I have the only number I need,” he said with a pointed look at her. Alright so he was a little terrible at it, but he figured that counted as flirting. At the very least it seemed to get a smile from Natalie.

“Smooth, very smooth,” she replied. She stood in front of him and gently put her arm on his shoulder. “Put your arm around my waist,” she directed and then took his other hand in hers to lift them up. “And relax,” she said with a light teasing tone as she looked up at him.

Relaxing he realized was something much easier said than done. His hand on her waist, his other laced through hers, the way he could feel her breath as she walked him through a basic waltz step, it was all so much. So much and yet not nearly enough. He could smell the perfume she wore, subtle hints of lilac and he was instantly reminded of the fragrance his Mom used to wear. The one luxury she allowed for herself, and how hard he worked in those last years to scrape together the money to buy her a bottle for Christmas. He moved with her to the tempo of the song and despite it technically being his job in the dance, he let her lead him in a large circle around the room.

When the song shifted, they slowed somewhat. “Of course, the waltz is a dying art these days,” she said as she moved her arm to wrap more around his back, leaving him no choice but to step in closer to her. Their hands moved in closer and rested against his chest and he wondered if she could feel the way his heart hammered. His head dipped down to her level and he rested his forehead lightly against hers as they swayed slowly. He could barely breathe as he caught a line of the song and it rattled around in his brain; _And I have to speculate that God himself did make us into corresponding shapes like puzzle pieces from the clay._

She was right _there,_ and every nerve ending in his body fired as she pressed into him. Natalie dropped his hand and let hers move to slide behind his neck and he couldn’t help the soft hum at the touch. Her other hand drifted down his back and along his arm and she pulled back just enough to be able to look up at him.

All he had to do was lean down a little, all he had to do was tug her in just a little bit closer. All he had to do was ignore the intrusive thoughts that suddenly screamed in the back of his mind. _You’re no good for her, you’re a wreck, tell her that you’re married to your work and you’re going to die bloody, tell her you wake up in the middle of the night and don’t even know where you are, tell her you can’t even get through a week without getting so angry at the way your life turned out you can’t even think straight, tell her the only time you feel right is when you’re on a battlefield, tell her your life is so pathetic you’ve gone whole weeks without talking to another person, tell her to go look the way she’s looking at anyone else but you -_

The self deprecating thoughts are interrupted as Natalie tugged at the back of his neck with her hand. She leaned up on her toes and pressed her lips to his. Steve could barely move, but as her mouth coaxed his the desire that he’d felt for her overtook and he kissed her back. His hands moved to tangle in her hair, and as he leaned into her they stumbled back a few steps. Natalie’s back hit the wall behind her and she kissed him back just as desperately. Which was exactly what he was. Desperate. He ran on instinct alone, it had been so long since he’d kissed someone and he barely even remembered how. All he knew was that for the first time in three years his mind was quiet. There was nothing but _her_. He’d heard kissing described as drowning before, but he had actually drowned. This was nothing like drowning. This was the opposite - this was coming up for the air his body so desperately needed to survive.

Natalie’s hands moved to the hem of his shirt and he quickly sobered as he realized she meant to tug it off. Steve pulled back and stilled her movements, his breath in ragged gasps and he touched his forehead to hers again. “Wait..” he breathed out. He could barely think, let alone form the words he needed to say right then and it took him a moment before he spoke again. He was in way over his head. He needed to take a step back before he let himself get completely caught up in the moment. “We should - “ another small pause as he took her face in his hands and looked at her. “I need to slow it down,” he said gently. As tempting as it was to let this go where she might have wanted it to, he knew he couldn’t.

Natalie nodded. “It’s okay, I get it,” she assured him and leaned up to kiss him again. Slower this time, less frenzied.

Steve tugged her in close as they kissed. When they parted he smiled at her and pressed his lips lightly to her forehead. “Can I buy you dinner?” he asked. “A proper date?” he clarified and brushed his thumb across her cheek.

Natalie grinned at him and leaned up to kiss him quick before she answered. “I’d love that.” She reached for his hand and threaded their fingers together before she gave it a soft squeeze. “Come on, let’s get out of here,” she suggested - and Steve, feeling more grounded than he had in ages, was more than content to let her lead him out into the early summer evening, for once looking forward to a night that stretched before him instead of dreading it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While I'm not adding it to the tags or changing archive warnings, please be aware that due to the nature of the relationship (namely Natalie being a lying liar who lies), this could be seen as pretty dub con-ish. So if that's an issue for you please proceed with caution.

 

Those first few days melted into weeks and then into months and Steve found himself quickly falling for Natalie more and more with every chance he had to see her.  She was warm, and funny, and she had a way of being able to pull him out of himself when the world weighed down around him. She was endlessly patient.  With his job that had him leaving for days at time with barely a moment’s notice.  With _him._ With the way he retreated into himself, with how sometimes he’d snap at the smallest of things, with the way he would have to leave a crowd when the thought it was _all_ _too much_ suddenly crept up without warning.  With the way he would hesitate when their make out sessions - _that’s what the kids call them,_ she’d told him once - started to turn into something more, her hips grinding against his when she moved herself onto his lap, his hands up and under her shirt and her skin like fire against his.  She stirred a want in him that couldn’t be quieted no matter how many times he brought himself to release under a cold shower.      
  
He felt like for the first time since he had been pulled from the Arctic that he was actually coming up for air.  That the cold that settled in his bones had started to warm, and despite having been out of the ice for a few years now this was the first he actually felt _awake._  He didn’t just shuffle from one responsibility to another.  One mission to the next.  His downtime had purpose, _meaning_.  And that purpose was Natalie.  When he realized it had been three months since he had first met her he was struck by how it managed to feel both like forever and the quickest three months of his life.  He knew without a doubt that he was ready to move their relationship to the next level and from there the plan came quickly.   
  
Natalie had mentioned the recital in passing, more in an effort to coordinate schedules than an invite.  A year end showcase for the parents of her students, he had given a quick glance to the poster when he picked her up to glean the pertinent information.  It wasn’t _terrible_ as far as entertainment went. Though he supposed one really had to have their child in the show to get the full effect, although the few dances that Natalie went on stage with her younger classes kept his attention fairly well.    
  
When the show ended he moved through the crowd of parents and students to find a side door to the backstage area.  One of Natalie’s coworkers spotted him and pointed him in the right direction.  A modest bouquet of flowers in his hand he walked toward the dressing room and paused in the doorway.  Natalie sat at the dressing table - her blonde hair still in a tight bun on the top of her head, but she had changed back into street clothes - and she wiped at the stage makeup on her face with a cloth.  She was breathtakingly beautiful and he couldn’t help but stop and stare.    
  
Her expression turned into a grin in the mirror after a moment as she felt his gaze on her.  “You know… if you were anyone else this might be considered creeping,” she pointed out with a teasing tone as she stood from the dressing chair.  Her hands moved to the elastic and pins in her hair and she started the process of undoing the tight bun.  
  
Steve laughed lightly and held up the bouquet as though it were a peace offering as he watched her hands run through her now loose hair. He wanted to run his own hands through the tresses, wanted to feel it between his fingers as he pushed her back against the wall and kissed her for all she was worth. He wanted to lose himself in her right then and there, kick shut the door and shove everything but her from his mind. He swallowed hard and forced himself back into a less - _distracting_ \- line of thought.  “Good thing it’s just me then,” he teased back.    
  
Natalie moved toward him and took the offered flowers, a warm smile on her face as she brought them up to smell.  “You didn’t have to,” she said, but her tone indicated she was more than touched by the gesture.    
  
“Well, it’s tradition, or so I’ve been told,” he replied and lifted a hand to tuck a stray strand of hair out of her face.   
  
“Not just the flowers, Steve,” she pointed out.  “You didn’t have to come today,” she added.  
  
He nodded.  “I know, but I wanted to.”  The soft smile that she gave at that warmed him.  He knew that Natalie was, while not nearly as isolated as he had been, lonely too.  That she had a few friends from her professional dancing days she kept in touch with, and then of course the girls in the studio she worked at - but no one she talked about to the extent he would imagine would have showed up today, and no family to support her either.  And it was clear that his being there had meant a lot. He was glad he had come for that alone.

He let his hand that had tucked her hair move behind her neck as he leaned in and pressed her lips to his.  “You ready to go?” he asked when they pulled apart a few moments later.  Natalie nodded and handed her flowers back to Steve so she could grab her things.    
  
“What happened to the bike?” Natalie asked as Steve led her to a large pickup truck in the lot of the recital hall.     
  
“Didn’t suit the plans,” he said with a coy grin as he helped her into the passenger seat.     
  
“What kind of plans?” Natalie asked him, a brow perked as he got in and started up the truck.     
  
“Well it wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you now would it,” he countered with a smile as they headed out of the parking lot.  “But the first part involves dinner, I made reservations at that Italian place you like…”   


 

* * *

 

 

“Seriously, where are we going?” Natalie asked with a soft laugh as they drove further and further from DC after they'd had dinner.   
  
“Nowhere,” Steve answered, a teasing grin on his face.

“More like middle of,” Natalie pointed out.

“That's the point,” Steve said as he turned down a dirt road. He kept driving for a few more minutes before the road led them to a clearing in the trees. He drove into the clearing and then cut the engine. The property itself was an old SHIELD training ground, but had sat unused for many years now. Not _completely_ off the beaten path, but just _enough_ off of it to ensure no one would randomly come across them.

“So you drove me out into the middle of nowhere,” Natalie started and looked to Steve. She smirked slightly, and leaned an elbow in the console to put her chin in her hand. “Now what?”

Steve leaned over to press a soft, chaste kiss to her lips before he hopped out of the truck. He walked around to the passenger side to open her door and led her to the cargo bed. The night air was warm, a perfect late summer night. He pulled back the retractable cover for the cargo bed, revealing that the back of the truck was filled with blankets and pillows.  

“You hoping to get lucky?” Natalie teased as Steve let down the tail gate.

“No,” he replied quickly, a blush spread across his face and he sheepishly rubbed a hand across the back of his neck with a shrug. “Well, maybe,” he admitted as he hopped up into the bed of the truck. He reached a hand out to help Natalie up.

“You know, you didn't have to drive me out into the middle of nowhere for that,” she said lightly and leaned up to press her lips to his.

Steve wrapped his arms around her as she deepened the kiss.  His hands moved to tangle in her hair, and the feel of her body pressed into his had his thoughts a jumbled mess in the best possible way. He laughed softly when they pulled apart, his forehead against hers. “You're probably right, but I'm trying to be romantic here.”  He helped her down to sit in the makeshift bed in the back of the truck. “Besides,” he added and nodded upward, “you can't get a view like this in the city.”

Natalie looked up. The night sky was littered with stars, more than one could ever hope to see among the buildings of DC. A nearly full moon shone bright.  “Well consider your mission for romance a success then, soldier,” she said with a smile and leaned in to kiss him again.

They settled to lay back on the blankets and pillows, Natalie wrapped up in Steve's arms. Steve had left the stereo playing and the music filtered softly through the night air, adding to the mood.  “I did have a little help,” Steve admitted after a moment. “This was number four on a list of top ten romantic date ideas.”

Natalie laughed softly. “I think this could give numbers three through one a run for their money,” she declared, and let out a soft, content sigh as Steve's hands threaded through her hair.

A comfortable silence settled between them as they watched the stars.  The odd streak darted across the sky, through neither of them were quite sure if they were shooting stars or satellites.  “I haven't seen the stars like this since I was a kid,” Natalie said. “You?”

Steve shifted a little at the question. “1945,” he said plainly. “We were stationed out in the middle of nowhere a lot,” he added. It had taken him a while to even notice back then. Until one night, knee deep in enemy territory and he looked up and suddenly it was all he could see. There they were, fighting - dying - to change the world and the stars stared down at them as immovable and unchangeable as they had been for millions of years. He had felt so small in that moment, smaller than he ever had before that moment and since.  

Natalie shifted to be able to look at him, her hands stacked on his chest and her chin resting on them. She watched him close as he lost himself to the memory.  She lifted herself, hands slid behind his neck and she pressed her lips to his. Soft at first, a gentle tug back to reality. And then more as he responded, as his arms wrapped around her and clung to her. She moved to sit up, tugging him up with her and her legs straddled his lap.

“Natalie…” he breathed out when they parted, their foreheads pressed together and he brought his hands up to cup her face, fingers grazing the edges of her hair. “Natalie I - “ he hesitated for a moment.  “The past three months with you have been like a whole other life for me, one I didn't think I would ever be able to have.  I've been happier in the past few months than I've ever been, _you've_ made me happier than I've ever been,” he paused again as he held her gaze. Steve could feel his heart hammering in his chest, both at once terrified and elated over what he was about to say. “And I know this might, I don't know - make me sound like some crazy old fashioned fool to be thinking this so soon, but, I love you,” he said.  

Her hands moved to rest against his and she smiled. “It’s not _that_ old fashioned,” she teased lightly.  Her eyes searched his for a moment and she brushed her lips against his gently before she spoke again.  “And I love you too, Steve.”

He couldn't help the grin that he broke out into as elation overtook the fear of rejection.  He was sure he looked like a damn fool, but he didn't _care._ Since waking up in his new future he had felt adrift, lost, _alone_ \- but right then he felt anything but.  He felt grounded by her in a way he had never dreamed of. And to hear her say those words he felt for the first time like he might belong in the life he had found himself in.

He pulled her in close and captured her lips with his.  Her hands curled into his shirt as his moved to run along her thighs. She let out a soft moan at that, her grip on his shirt tightening.  Steve's hands moved from her legs to her own shirt, slipped underneath and his palms rested flat against her bare skin. Natalie’s hips rolled against his, and he was almost embarrassingly hard even at that.

Natalie’s hands moved to the hem of his shirt. She broke the kiss and locked her eyes with his. “Is this okay?” she asked softly as her fingers curled around the hem with intent to take it off.

Steve watched her, hair in curls around her face, her lips red and swollen from their kisses, the faint light of the moon dancing over her features and God had he ever seen anything so beautiful. He nodded and her hands tugged his shirt up and over. He did the same to hers, and his eyes travelled downward to the expanses of creamy skin now on display. His breath caught in his throat as his hands started to roam on their own accord.   

Hiis arms wrapped around her thin form, and he claimed her lips once more.  Natalie reached behind her and deftly snapped the clasp of her bra. Steve let his mouth trail down the side of her neck and along her collarbone as he pulled the strap off her shoulder. And then the same on the other side before he pulled the garment out from between them. His heart _raced_ as his hands, lips, took in her bare flesh. _So much_ skin, so much of her body he had laid awake all but tormented with his desire for, and now was his.  

“ _Steve…_ ” she breathed out as his lips ran along her collarbone, his fingers darting lines across the skin of her back, down her sides and up along her ribs.

“You're beautiful, so beautiful,” he mumbled against her skin and then pulled back to look up at her. There was a weight at the sudden realization of what he was about to do, and his confidence faltered as he let his head drop.  

“Steve?” Natalie prompted, concern in her tone.

“I've never -” he admitted softly.  A admission that he figured she must have already known, what with his hesitation to even go this far up to this point. He could feel the slight blush creep across the back of his neck. Here he was, well into his twenties and having to admit he was still a virgin.

“Hey,” she stated and cupped his face to gently urge him to look at her. “It's okay,” she assured him.

“I just - I don't want to disappoint you,” he said quietly.  She was perfect.  She deserved perfection and he was terrified he'd completely fuck this up. Not just the sex, but _everything._ He was a broken mess and he was constantly surprised she'd found _anything_ worth wanting in him. Let alone anything worth loving.  He couldn't help but think he'd end up being something she regretted. Some dark blotch on her life's record. That she'd wake up one day and realize she'd gone and given her heart to someone who didn't deserve it.

“I love you,” she echoed her earlier statement as she searched his eyes. “You could _never_ be a disappointment,” she said said.  “You're amazing, Steve, everything you've done and everything you've been through…” Her thumb caressed his face lightly where her hand rested on his cheek. “I've never met anyone like you, and I never thought I'd be so lucky to have someone like you love me,” she added, her voice soft but the words strong. “Besides,” she started with a coy smile as her hands moved to lace behind his neck. “I kinda like the idea of being your first,” she glanced down for a moment and Steve watched as she seemed to debate her next words.  “Your first, maybe your only,” she added after a moment and met his gaze.

Steve swallowed hard against a lump that had formed. Her words were not ones he took lightly and the connotations behind them filled him with a hope for his future that he had never felt before. He smiled, a duck of his head as it turned into another goofy grin. “How the hell did I ever get so lucky,” he said and looked up to catch her eyes again.

“Fate,” she answered with a smile. She leaned down to drag her lips across his, and then along his face to suck his earlobe between her lips. He hummed at the move and she started to roll her hips against his again. “Steve…” she started, her voice low and wanton in his ear. “Put your hands on me,” she instructed

Steve moved his hands to run over the bare skin of her back and then up along her sides. He hesitated before he ran his plans over her breasts.  If he hadn't already been hard before this he sure as hell would have done him in, especially as she kept her hips ground into his with a pressure that was making his head spin. He rolled her nipple between his fingers and smiled, satisfied, by the moan the move drew from her. He ducked his head down and let his mouth trail through the valley between her breasts before he latched his mouth around one of her nipples.

Natalie sighed with pleasure and reached a hand to take his. She interlaced their fingers for a moment, gave his hand a squeeze and then placed it on her thigh. He gripped her leg before he let his hand slide up higher. Her breath hitched a little in her throat and he kept going until he reached the apex of her thighs. She ground down against his hand, her lips sucking a mark on the side of her neck.

Steve reached his other hand between them and worked open the button of her jeans - a task made more difficult by the slight tremble in his hands. He was ready, he knew that, and he knew he _wanted_ her, but the nerves persisted none the less. His hand slipped under the waistband, fingers tentative as he brushed against the fabric of her panties, and God if it didn't go right to him to feel the dampness of her arousal, arousal because of _him_. His fingers worked their way under the fabric and she moaned against his skin as he brushed over her.

“Is this okay?” he asked as his fingers continued their exploration.  

“Yes… God, yes...“ she breathed out, her hips grinding against his hand as she seeked out friction.

He kept his other hand tight on her back, watching her as she bit her lower lip and her eyelids fluttered. He sunk a finger into her, shuddering at the feel of how warm and wet she was, at the thought of how _good_ it would feel to have that wrapped around him instead of his own hand.  He _ached_ with his want for her now that it was _this close_. Now that his fingers curled in her, his hands slick with the proof she wanted him just as much, now that her mouth had claimed his again and he swallowed all the little noises his hand’s ministrations earned him.

But it wasn't _enough_. It wasn't nearly enough.

She seemed to pick that up - or maybe she felt the same, Steve wasn't sure which. But she deftly untangled herself from him to lay down beside him and scoot of her pants. He took that as a sign to do the same. Before his brain could even hope to catch up, she had settled herself back in his lap, her hands laced around his neck. He groaned softly as he felt her wet folds rub against the base of his cock, so _damn_ close.  

“I - uh -” he started, his thoughts more than a little clouded.  “In my wallet,” he added with a small nod toward where he had discarded his pants.

“It's fine,” she assured him. “I'm on the pill.”

Steve ran a thumb over her cheekbone.  “You sure?” he asked, not double checking just the protection issue, but _everything._

She leaned down and kissed him.  Soft, slow and open mouthed. His hand moved to tangle in his hair, the other pressed flat against her back. “I'm sure,” she assured him as she pulled back just enough to talk. She held his gaze as she reached between them and guided him into her.

Steve maintained the eye contact as long as he could - but he had to break it to let his head fall against her as she seated herself fully on him. It was all just _too much._  More than he had ever imagined, more than his hand could have ever hoped to be during all those cold showers. “Natalie…” he breathed out, his body shuddered against hers as she started to move against him slowly. “Feels so good… God, you feel so good…” he babbled.

He felt wrecked. Completely and utterly wrecked in the most amazing way. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, but the feel of her skin against his, her breaths that turned more and more ragged as she sped up the roll of her hips. Nothing but how it felt to be completely lost in her. But _lost_ he realized soon enough - as he could feel the subtle contractions of her inner muscle around his cock, the warmth of her wet core - lost wasn't the right word. No, he was _found_ .   _Finally_ found.

Natalie’s hands tightened around his neck as she kept up the roll of her hips. “Steve,” she got out between breaths and let her hands move to tug at his face. “Look at me,” she instructed.  

Steve lifted his eyes up to hers. He doubted he would ever see anything as beautiful as she was in that moment, and he committed the moment to memory. Something to keep him going through long nights the next time being Captain America pulled him away from her. His hips bucked against hers as she kept her pace, and he knew if the world ended right then he'd die a happy man.

“Are you close?” she asked him, and when he nodded she gently lifted a hand to tug at his in her hair. She guided his hand between them, and Steve took the hint and started to rub his thumb against her clit.

“Steve.. right there…” she breathed out, and the movements of her hips started to grow erratic.

“Natalie, I'm so…” he trailed off as his orgasm overtook him.

She ground against him as he spilled into her, and her own release wasn't far behind. And as her body shuddered above his she went slack and fell against him. Steve wrapped his arms around her, their hearts pounded against their chests and he felt like he was _vibrating_.  He couldn't even think straight as he held her weight against him, as his body shook in the afterglow. “I love you,” he said softly.

“I love you,” she repeated and as her body slowly stopped shaking she placed her hands on his chest and pushed herself back up to look at him. He had a goofy, dazed, look on his face and she laughed softly at the sight of it.

Her laughter was infectious and he couldn't help a chuckle of his own. He hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her in to kiss. “You're amazing,” he said as they parted.

Natalie grinned, but a flash in the distance caught her attention and her eyes darted away from Steve's. “Uhhh… Steve…” she started as another flash lit up the sky in the distance. “Did you happen to check the weather?”

The low rumble of thunder rolled in and Steve's face fell. “Shit…” he swore, as another flash of lightning rippled across the sky.  

They laughed as they scrambled back into their clothes, the sky grew dark quickly as the clouds rolled over to hide the stars. Steve had barely pulled the cover back over the bed of the truck and helped Natalie back into the cab before the skies opened up. Practically drenched in the short amount of time it took to dart across to the driver's side, he slid into the seat and threw an apologetic look at Natalie. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly.

She leaned across and kissed him. “Don't worry,” she said with a laugh as she pulled back and reached a hand to rake through his now wet hair as she tried to put it back into some semblance of order. “Still romantic,” she assured him.

Steve grinned as he started up the truck. He steered them back onto the main road and then reached a hand across for hers. “Come back to my place?” he asked. 

Natalie gave his hand a squeeze and smiled. “Nowhere else I'd rather be,” she said as her eyes settled out on the road as they drove back to the city.

The rain came down fiercely as they drove.  And even once they’d made it back to Steve’s apartment it still hammered against the windows.  But Steve barely noticed, let alone _cared_ .  Not when he had Natalie there.  Not when they crashed together just inside the door, all desperate and hungry kisses, clothes peeled off as they made their way into the bedroom.  How _could_ he care when the steady drum of the rain, the thunder that clapped and the lightning that lit up his room only served to add to the mood as they brought each other over the edge again and again until they finally collapsed into each other’s arms, completely sated.  And as he pulled Natalie close against him under the covers Steve drifted off into something he hadn’t had in _years_ \- a dreamless and satisfying sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dub con warning from the prior chapter still applies here. As well there is some messiness happening here with partner violence. All unintentional stuff and based out of other issues, but please make note and use your own discretion. I'm available on tumblr @myloveiamthespeedofsound if anyone wanted to chat about it more specifically before making a decision to proceed or not. 
> 
> As always thank you everyone for reading along and all the lovely comments!

✉ Status report.  Now.   
  
Natalia stared down at the text with a sense of dread that coiled in her stomach.  She was behind schedule.  She knew that.  By  _ weeks _ , if not months.  The operation was not supposed to take this long and she was well aware of that.   _ You never fail _ , Madame B’s words echoed in her mind.  After all, wasn’t that why she had been chosen.  But Steve had proved to be tougher than they thought.  He had bought into the lie of course - Natalie was firmly ingrained into his life now.  He had taken her for what Natalia had presented - a patient young woman who he could cling onto, a beacon of hope in a lonely life, a woman who was warm and one who had just enough sadness and loneliness in her own life to be viewed as somewhat of a kindred spirit, but not so much to not be viewed as someone dragged down by tragedy.    


Still though, Steve hesitated.  Aside from their first night together nearly five weeks ago now, he had yet to sleep through the night - something which had been key in her plan.  She needed to catch him off guard, completely.  And Steve Rogers struggled to be just that.  He woke frequently during the night, and quite often even insisted she didn’t have to stay as he believed himself to be disturbing Natalie’s sleep.  Natalie was always patient, always kind, always insistent that he wasn’t and that she loved him and wanted to stay with him.  Natalia waited for the night he would sleep sound.  And then a mission took him out of the country for two weeks and put her even further behind.  She chewed on the inside of her lip and composed a reply.

✉ Target is still on guard during the nights and out of the country until tomorrow.   
  
It felt like an excuse and it left a sour taste in her mouth.   _ You never fail. _  She was supposed to be better than this.    


✉ Two weeks.   
✉ Or we will terminate the mission.   
  
Natalia pressed her lips together.  She knew the consequences of a terminated mission.  They all did.  But then the consequences of this particular mission had been clear from the start.  Steve Rogers or herself.  At the end only one of them would be standing.  Failure on her part was not an option.    


✉ Understood.

Natalia slipped the phone back into the hidden pocket of her bag.  She pulled her legs under her where she sat on the bed.  Her apartment was nice, furnished in the manner her cover would realistically have picked both for her personality and socio-economic status.  Filled with knick knacks and furniture she hadn’t picked.  And there would be times, when she was left alone because the target was busy, that Natalia would find herself wandering the space.  She would pick up random objects, turn them over in her hand and remind herself of the reasons  _ Natalie _ would have bought it.  And then, lately, there were moments Natalia started to wonder if  _ she  _ liked it.  If she would have bought it for herself.  Little thoughts that she knew were dangerous but came anyways.     


It had been told to her often that time was the most dangerous thing on missions like these.  Empty moments where the lines between the lies and reality bled together.  Where the mind could get jumbled and emotions confused.  Where the lie became more than that, where the lie became something to be wanted.  Where you could get compromised.  And time she had in spades those past days.     
  
_ You never fail. _ __  
__  
The sound of her phone -  _ Natalie’s phone  _ \- as it buzzed along the table pulled her from the thoughts.  Her brow raised as she moved to grab the phone.  Steve was gone and for the most part he was the only one who ever contacted her on the number. __  
__  
✉ Got back early.    
  
Natalia tapped her finger against the back of the phone as she read the text.  There was a small flutter of  __ something in the pit of her stomach at the words. Something undefinable, but worrisome. She tried to push it away as she composed a reply. 

✉ Good.  
✉ I missed you, Soldier. 

A moment passed before the reply came. 

✉ Oh yeah?  Maybe you should come over and show me just how much you missed me.  
✉ Sorry, that was terrible. I'm terrible at this.  
✉ But you should still come over. I missed you too. 

Natalia huffed a small laugh at the exchange. It was endearing somehow. Steve's awkwardness even still when it came to certain things. Another thought that she tried to push away. A thought that would only complicate things. She needed to be indifferent. She needed to view him as a mission and nothing more. Feelings, emotions, no matter how small, would only find her hesitant when it came time to complete the mission. 

✉ Be right there. 

There was a marked difference in Steve when she made it over to his place. Something maybe not discernable to most people, but clear as day to her. She wasn't, after all, most people. She struggled with whether it was enough for Natalie to pick up on, or past the line of concerned girlfriend. 

“Are you okay, Steve?” she finally asked halfway through the movie they'd put on. She laid back against his chest, his arms around her but even still it felt like he was a million miles away. He hadn't reacted to anything in the movie, hadn't laughed at a single joke. And the few times she had pointed something out to him it had taken a while for him to even realize she was talking to him. Even now her question went unanswered until she pulled herself out of his arms, looked down and repeated it. 

Steve's eyes moved slowly to hers and there was a moment where Natalia could swear he didn't even recognize her. But it was a quick recovery and he leaned up to cup a hand against her face. “Sorry, what did you say?”

Natalia’s brow furrowed. “I asked if you were okay…” a soft voice, Natalie’s voice. Ever patient, even when concerned. 

Steve nodded. “Yeah, just tired from the mission,” he answered.

Natalia regarded him closely. He was lying, badly. “You're a terrible liar,” she said with a soft smirk. She leaned forward and brushed her hands through his hair. “Can I do anything?” 

He shook his head. There hadn’t been anything particularly triggering about the mission, it had just hit him regardless for some reason.  Or maybe it had been too many nights away from Natalie, too many days that stretched into one another without her to pull him from his own mind.  His eyes closed softly as her hands worked through his hair, a soft sigh escaping from his lips.   _ She deserves better _ .  The thought that almost constantly tugged at him in moments like these.  Moments he knew she should be giving all this love and attention on someone who wasn’t as broken as he was.  He was the worst kind of selfish he figured, to not end it with her and let her find someone better.  But it was so hard when she made everything better.  When her hands in his hair brought him out of himself, made him relax, made him feel like he was worth more than what he did in a fight. “This, just this,” he said softly and let his eyes open to look into hers.   
  
“You’re amazing,” he said before he leaned in to kiss her.  “And I’m sorry, for being so out of it tonight,” he mumbled as his lips moved down the side of her neck.  He tugged her onto his lap, arms moved around her waist as his lips continued to pepper attention on her skin.     
  
Something akin to guilt rolled in her stomach.  Barely noticeable, but  _ there _ none the less when she knew it shouldn’t be.  Steve’s lips roamed across the skin of her chest left bare by the low cut shirt.  His hands moved under the hem and against her back - he was tactile.  So very tactile.  Something she had assumed would be the case but had started to throw her lately.  Steve could never seem to to get enough of Natalie’s skin.  There never seemed to be a point that was  _ close enough _ .  When they were like this, when it moved forward, when that first night broke open some flood dam of pent up want and desire.  It felt like he was all but trying to crawl into her skin, to lose himself completely and fully in her.  Like every wrong in his life could be righted if he could just keep her close enough to him.     
  
She’d slept with her marks before.  But it had never been like this.  It had always been sex - this was, well this was something  _ more _ .  And if she stupidly let herself think about it too much it absolutely  _ terrified _ her.  “It’s okay, it’s okay…” she repeated quietly as he all but worshiped Natalie with his lips, with his hands as they roamed, with the depth of the emotion as he looked up at her.  And God how it was so easy to lose herself in that.  To live the lie.  To feel the butterflies as he looked at her like she was the only damn thing keeping him from drowning.  To give in to the goosebumps that dotted her skin under his touch  The warmth that spread through her as he breathed out  _ I love you _ against her skin, again and again and  _ love is for children _ was a mantra that became quieter and quieter.     
  
Steve lifted her and carried her to his bedroom, the movie completely forgotten. It was so much nicer after all to lose himself in her. To move with her and let her undo him, take him apart and put him back into something resembling a real man. It had been just shy of two weeks, but as they made love it felt like forever since he'd held her in his arms. And he had missed it. Missed  _ her _ .  And as she curled himself into his more than willing arms, bodies sated, it was easy to drift off. If only for a short while. 

Natalia had hoped for a peaceful night. But it was not in the cards. Steve was restless, he tossed and turned and more than once he bolted up in a cold sweat. She tried her best to lull him to sleep, but it was proving to be a lost cause. 

“You should… I mean if you want you can go,” he said softly as another round of shifting in the bed stirred her. 

Natalia could hear the guilt in the words. It  _ oozed _ it. She shook her head. Natalie did not run, Natalie was patient she reminded herself. It was  _ Natalie  _ who wanted to stay and provide at least, if not a way to make him sleep, company while he couldn't. She cupped Steve's face between her hands. “It's fine, Steve,” she assured him. 

He held her gaze for a moment before he leaned in to kiss her. “Thank you,” he said. “I'm just going to grab some water, can I get you anything?”

She shook her head. “No, I'm okay.”

Steve nodded and slipped out of the bed. She could hear his footsteps as he made his way to the kitchen. And then the sound of the fridge being opened. She waited for the sound of it closing, of footsteps as they came back down the hall toward the bedroom. But nothing came. She frowned as the minutes passed and then made her way down to the kitchen herself.    


Steve's form was silhouetted by the light of the fridge. She could see every muscle in his back taut and rigid. On guard. She approached slowly, from the side so that she would come into view before she spoke. “Steve?” she asked gently, her voice quiet. He didn't move, eyes locked to the back of the freezer but somehow starting a hundred miles past it. “Steve…” she said a little louder. A little firmer as she placed her hand on his arm. 

Which was when all hell broke loose. He let go of the fridge, the little light it had provided gone as the door swung shut. Steve's hands moved to Natasha's arms and he roughly manhandled her to the wall and shoved her up against it. Natalia had had worse, it was a shock more than anything and she was surprised by the yelp that escaped her lips as he handled her. Though she supposed maybe it was for the best.  Natalie would be surprised.  Natalie would be hurt.  Natalie wouldn’t immediately think of the best way to escape the grip, bring down her attacker and make him pay for it.  She tried to remember that as he held her, as his fingers crushed into her arms and he shook her.   


“Who are you!” he demanded. His eyes were narrowed as he stared down at her. Hard, but wild with abandon. A man who was completely lost to some dark recess of his own mind. A man ready to snap.  And considering the power she knew Steve had, the strength even then in his grip and how he  _ vastly _ towered over her, it was off putting.  There had been reasons for her rouse, reasons for the mission to depend on getting Steve off guard.  There were few that could win a fight with him in close quarters, no matter how skilled they might be.   


Natalia’s heart sunk at the words, at the sudden thought that  _ he knew.  _ But she had no reason to logically believe that. Especially as she took in Steve. There wasn't an ounce of recognition in his eyes as he stared her down. Even less as his hands gripped her arms tighter - she would be bruised in the morning no doubt - and slammed her into the wall again. She quickly debated fighting back. After all her mission was to terminate the target.  But if he came to, or if she failed, he would clearly see she knew things sweet little Natalie who spent her days teaching children how to dance should not know.  Her months spent earning his trust would be shot to hell.

Her hands moved to his on her upper arms. She steeled her expression into one of scared pleading. The ever patient, ever kind, and ever understanding girlfriend who now had a front row seat to seeing just how badly Steve Rogers was damaged.  The ever patient, ever kind, and every understanding girlfriend who had no way to defend herself if this went worse, who had never thrown a punch so much as killed a man with her bare hands.  Natalie would be scared, but hopeful.  Natalie wouldn’t fight back, just beg.

“Steve…. Steve it's me… Natalie…” she spoke clearly, her voice an appropriate level of panicked for the situation.  _ Tactile _ .  She reached her hands up to his head. He practically  _ grunted _ and ducked away from the touch a few times before she managed to rake her fingers through his hair. Just like she had done so often when he woke from a nightmare. “Shhhhh… it's okay… I'm here…” she continued softly as her hands worked through his hair. 

His eyes snapped back into recognition. And then abject horror as he realized what had just transpired and his hands let go their grip on her arms. “Natalie…” he choked out like a sob.  “Oh god, I'm sorry.. I'm so sorry…” he continued, his voice rough and broken. He tried to move away but she gently pulled him back to her. His mind screamed  _ run _ , screamed that he had crossed a line, that in addition to being a mistake he was now  _ dangerous  _ for her. He had hurt her. The one person worth anything in the whole damn mess that was his life and he had  _ hurt _ her. Already he could see the ugly splotches on her arms, even in the dim light from a street lamp near the window. He couldn’t be trusted, his issues had made him so far gone that he was a  _ threat _ to the woman he loved.  He felt like he was going to be sick, bile rose in the back of his throat and he had to swallow hard against it to keep from throwing up right there and then.  Run.  Leave.  Get as far away from Natalie as he could.  What he  _ should _ do.  He knew that.  It had never been so clear as it was right then.   


But she so  _ willingly _ tugged him towards her, even after what he had done, and he felt so  _ weak _ . Lost and shaken by the episode.  Lost and shaken by the demons of his own mind - the things he had seen, the things he had done, the memories of drowning slowly, the weight of his lost decades and feeling out of place at every turn. He was cold in a way he could never hope to describe -  colder than it had ever been as he waited for his body to give out, crushed under the weight of the plane and the ice - and she was so warm as he collapsed into to her. So soft - when everything in his life was  _ hard _ \- as she wrapped her arms around him.  He was awful, terrible,  _ wrong _ as he took her desire to be there, let her fill him up with it when no one else ever had.  But he was so far gone, so desperate to not have to go back to before.  To when he’d spent countless nights in this state with no one there to see or care.  She was steady as he faltered and shook. “I'm sorry… I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…” he repeated over and over, until the tremor that shook his body took over and he could no longer find his voice. 

Natalia held him tight. His body practically  _ buzzed  _ against hers as he shook. She couldn't help but think he was about to rapidly descend again and she found herself at a loss. Natalie would coax him back to the bed. She would whisper sweet things, assure him and try to get him back to sleep. But Natalie had already tried that. Several times that night and the situation had only deteriorated.  He was adrift, frantic and desperate for something to hold onto. Something tactile.  She needed a new strategy, and she  _ knew _ what it was.  It just wasn’t what  _ Natalie  _ would do.  For the first time she would approach a situation with Steve as herself.  She knew it was crossing a line, that she couldn’t excuse it away as attempting to maintain the cover, as taking charge of a situation because she  _ had _ to.  There was a want there.  A want that was strictly off limits.   


So it wasn't  _ Natalie _ who pulled him in closer. Whose lips started to press softly into his skin, and then more purposefully. It wasn't Natalie who whispered a  _ just let me do this  _ to his soft protest. And it sure as hell wasn't Natalie’s hand that slipped under the waistband of his boxer shorts, curled her fingers around his cock and brought him to hardness. Natalie was patient. Natalie was kind and understanding.  Natalie wasn’t the kind of girl who would let her boyfriend fuck her against a wall after he had violently pushed her against it.  No, Natalie was a  _ nice  _ girl.  And Natalie didn't smile, satisfied, when her boyfriend who just assaulted her suddenly groaned with desire and want as she stroked his cock. But  _ Natalia  _ did.   


She shimmied out of her panties, they dropped off her feet as Steve's arms encircled her and lifted her off the ground. Her legs wrapped around his midsection and she slipped a hand between them to guide him into her. It was rough at first, and she winced slightly at the feel of him scraping against her dry. But it only took a few thrusts for her body to respond with want of her own and wetness to rush in. He pushed her hard against the wall as he bucked his hips into hers, his pace erratic and frantic. Desperate in a way she'd never seen on him as their mouths brushed against each other's. Not exactly a  _ kiss _ , but connecting nonetheless. And it was different there, in the dim light, in the silence of the night with only his moans and the sound of skin hitting skin.   _ She  _ felt different.  Her fingers dug into his back and she knew he would probably reach climax before she could have a chance, but it didn’t  _ matter _ .  It wasn’t about that, not then.  Not when he held onto her for dear life the way he did. 

He came quickly. With a shudder that seemed to still his earlier shake as he spilled into her. His forehead sunk to her shoulder and Natalia could hear his breath echoed in the space between her neck and collarbone. Ragged, but satisfied. His whole body changed, truly slack against hers now as she let her feet touch the ground. The tautness in his muscles, the tension that had  _ radiated _ off of him earlier had faded. Whatever battle his mind had been waging was won, or at the very least forgotten for the time being. Her hands drew a line up and down his spine as his breathing calmed and he came down.   
  
They were quiet for a few minutes, and Steve pressed his lips lightly to her collarbone.  He wanted to say something, but he wasn’t sure  _ what _ .  Instead he grabbed her thighs to lift her again, her legs wrapped around him.  He carried her through the hall, back toward the bedroom.  Gently he placed her down on the covers. His hands moved up her sides, eliciting a moan from her as his fingers brushed along the underside of her breasts. He rolled his nipples between her fingers and she breathed out. “Steve…”

Desire coiled in her stomach and spread through her as his hands roamed her body.  “You don't have to…” she assured him as his mouth trailed a path up her thigh. 

“Yes I do,” he said before he dragged a finger through her wet folds to slip in her heat. She was slick, with her own wetness mixed with him. And when his tongue darted out to flick at her clit he could taste both. 

Natalia moaned as he touched her, as his tongue pressed against her core. She let herself give into it. The way he always made sure she got as good as she gave. Even if it wasn't completely intended for  _ her.  _ Once he'd gotten over the initial first nerves of sex, he'd quickly found a footing. More than that. And it was a shame she figured, that no other woman would now how attentive and amazing of a lover he was. How he all but  _ worshiped  _ her body with his hands, his mouth. How he glanced up at her, eyes darkened with desire, with his head between her legs. His tongue worked against her, in all the ways he had picked up to pull her apart. In some she hadn't even been aware  _ existed  _ until he found them. 

Natalia’s hands tugged at his hair and she moaned as his fingers curled in her just so. She was close, but she wanted more. She wanted  _ him.  _ Her hand moved to his and she gently pulled from her. He seemed to get what she was aiming for and he lifted his head. Natalia pressed against his shoulder and urged him onto his back. He was already hard again - the man's stamina was astounding - and she moved to straddle his hips. She lowered herself onto his cock, a groan as he filled her again.  _ Wrong.  _ Her mind screamed. All wrong. Too close.  _ Compromised _ . But she rolled her hips regardless. Let herself give in to  _ how good  _ he felt as she rode him. How good it felt to see the look of lust, love,  _ adoration  _ in his eyes as he watched her. 

She was sure she was ruined. As his hands slipped up her thighs and his thumb rubbed at her clit between them. Ruined as he filled her so  _ completely.  _ Ruined as her head fell back in sheer ecstasy. Even more so when as she hit her peak and her muscles spasmed against his cock. He lifted himself up as she did and wrapped his arms tight around her. “God, you're amazing, perfect… you're perfect…” he spoke lowly as his lips grazed against the skin of her neck. As he waited for her before he let his own orgasm take over and she could feel him spill into her. 

It was intimacy in the highest as they held each other, him still inside her. Intimacy she had never know, even with a mark, before. She knew it was wrong,  _ more  _ than wrong, but she let herself give into it.  Enjoy it even.  Let it wash over her as his hands traced patterns along her skin, as his lips pressed the softest of kisses to the bruises that had formed on her arms.     
  
“I love you, I love you so damn much…” he said.  His fingers brushed against the evidence of his earlier outburst.  Guilt crossed his features and Natalia took a moment to lean in and kiss him softly.   
  
She pulled back and held his gaze, her hands cupped around his face.  “I love you too,” she whispered.  And for the life of her she wasn’t sure who spoke the words.  She knew then  _ just how _ badly she had screwed up, just  _ how far _ she had let herself become compromised.  Worse was how little she  _ cared _ right then, lost in his gaze, lost in the moment.  And as they shuffled back under the covers, as they curled into each other and she settled into his warmth she found herself caring even less. The night was nearly gone but they didn’t care.  They had nothing to do that morning.  And as the dawn broke, for the first time in longer that she could even remember, Natalia  _ slept _ .   
  
  



	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much everyone for all the lovely encouragement. <3

_So why do you fill my sorrow_   
_With the words you've borrowed_   
_From the only place you've known_   
_And why do you sing Hallelujah_   
_If it means nothing to you_   
_Why do you sing with me at all?_

 

Steve was asleep. Deeply.  His chest rose and fell. His breathing was slow, deep, even. She watched as he stayed motionless, not even the movement of his eyes behind the lids. She had gently untangled herself from his arms and sat on the bed to watch him. Natalia pressed her lips together and then leaned in close. He didn't stir. She gently blew a breath across his face and still he didn't move. Her fingers dusted against the line of where his eyelashes met his skin, and she tried not to let herself think too much about how beautiful he looked right then.  Still he didn’t move.  Her heart hammered in her chest and she chided herself for it.   _This is what you’ve been waiting for_ she told herself.  The same thing she had told herself every night that week.  She had her opportunity, wide open for her to take.  

Her fingers brushed against his cheek.  Along the small dusting of freckles on his skin, the ones that weren’t even noticeable unless you were just _this close._  His breath blew across her fingers and she shivered, goosebumps up her arms.  Six days.  She had six days.  Her mind drifted to the gun in her bag, rolled in a cloth and tucked away in a hidden pocket.  A silencer so no one would hear the commotion, so no one would come looking until she was long gone.  

_You never fail._

Natalia’s fingers traversed across his skin, over the freckles, along his cheekbone and down the hard line of his jaw.  She found herself wondering if he was dreaming, if so what did he dream of?  What did the great Steve Rogers wish for when the weight of his reality finally lifted, what did he long for when he felt safe enough to drift off to the point of letting his mind completely take over.  Did he dream of Natalie?  Did he dream of the life Natalie had promised him, the one that would never be a reality.  Did he dream of a future; of a house, a white picket fence.  A dog, maybe children?  A _normal_ life.  A life that he could never truly have, even if Natalie was a real person.  A life that _Natalia_ found herself dreaming about more and more.  An impossible dream about impossible things.

It would be easy.  They had designed it to be easy.  A target so dead to the world that they wouldn’t notice until it was too late.  The gun was within reach, her bag dropped by the nightstand.  All she had to do was get up.  All she had to do was reach for it, pull it out.  Thread the silencer on and pull a trigger.  Movements that had been ingrained in her since she was a child.  Movements she could do in her sleep.  

_You never fail._

She dropped her hand. From the distance she could hear sirens in the night. Someone else's tragedy to play out while the rest of the city slept. She let herself forget about the tragedy she was supposed to orchestrate.  As wrong as a move that was she did it.  She had time.  It did not have to be tonight, even if she knew that every moment she let pass she made everything worse and worse.  She did not get up, she did not reach for the bag.  No, instead she slipped back under the covers and settled back against Steve. She lifted his arm to place around her once more.  She let the steady beat of his heart soothe her, let herself get lost in the feel of him.  She listened to him breathe and let her own body slip into a light sleep. Six days. She had six days.

 

* * *

 

  
Steve was up before her, and she found herself slightly disoriented when she woke up alone in the bed. But there was sound, and the smell of bacon, from the kitchen so she knew he hadn't gone far. Natalia laid in the bed and stared up at the ceiling. She chewed on her lower lip as she let her mind wander.  Breakfast. He was making her breakfast. Well, he was making _Natalie_ breakfast. It wasn't the first time, but she had to wonder right then if it would be the _last_. Something she wasn't sure how she felt about.

She sat up in the bed and was suddenly hit by a wave of dizziness. The smell of bacon went from mouth watering in an appetizing way to mouth watering in a completely different way. She pushed herself off the bed and ran to the ensuite bathroom. There wasn't much left in her stomach, but whatever there was she promptly threw up.

Natalia leaned back against the wall, her stomach still in the worst kind of knots but the feeling of needed to puke had passed at least. She let out a slow breath. Her skin felt clammy and she still felt dizzy.  She wasn't sure what had come over her, she had felt off a few days before and a couple before that but it hadn't been even close to this.  She’d never been actually sick to this degree.  She ran over what she’d eaten the night before, wondering if maybe something hadn’t sat right with her - but they hadn’t had anything that would be a usual culprit.

“Natalie?” she heard Steve call as he came back into the room and she winced slightly.  She didn’t want him to see her like this, sprawled on the floor after puking in his toilet. “Breakfast is ready…” she heard him trail off and she leaned forward to flush the toilet as Steve moved into the ensuite. “Hey, you okay?” he asked, the concern more than evident in his voice as he spotted her on the floor.

“Yeah, I'm fine,” she tried to assure him as she gripped the edge of the counter to pull herself up. She had hoped she'd have a handle on it but it was only Steve reaching to grab her arms that kept her from losing her footing as another wave of dizziness washed over her.  She let him straighten her and she felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment - though she assumed he would chalk it up to being sick thankfully.

“You sure about that?” he asked as he helped her back toward the bed.  He kept a firm grip on her arm, his tone filled with worry.

Natalia felt awful as Steve helped her into the bed.  She hardly ever got sick and she hated the feeling. Worse was the feeling of _weakness_ as she burrowed back under Steve's duvet.  She was supposed to be strong, capable.  She wasn’t supposed to need help to even make it from the bathroom to the bed.  She avoided his gaze as he leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “I'll go get you some water, be right back,” he assured her and left the room.  Natalia curled up on her side, loathing that her body had decided to betray her.

She could hear Steve in the kitchen, and despite herself she found herself starting to view it as comforting in a way she knew she shouldn’t find comfort in.  An odd sort of feeling that washed over her as Steve appeared in the doorway with a glass of water and the toast from his now abandoned breakfast.  She realized he wanted to take care of her.  She’d never had anyone take care of her.  Her parents had been long gone before she could form any memory of being cared for.  The orphanages that followed had little time to give attention to a sick child.  And in the Red Room sickness was never coddled.  If anything it was punished, a sign of weakness that had to be dealt with.  Injuries were much the same.  Bare necessities but never _care._   

Steve handed her the glass and she took a few cautious sips as he set the plate down on the nightstand table.  He sunk to the bed beside her and took the glass when she handed it back.  He gave her a sympathetic smile - he did, after all, know just _how much_ it sucked to feel ill.  He lifted a hand to press to her forehead.  Her skin was clammy but cool still to the touch.  “No fever,” he said quietly.  It was a relief.  He was startled but just how much it tugged at him, the idea of Natalie being sick.  The lack of a fever he took as a good sign, that maybe she had just ate something that didn’t sit well, or whatever bug she’d caught would pass shortly.  He pulled the covers back around her as she laid back down.  “I’m sorry you’re feeling so awful,” he said as he curled up behind her.     
  
Natalia smiled at that.  Only Steve would apologize for something entirely not his fault. She turned to tuck her head under his chin.   _Comfort._  Comfort she hadn’t earned, didn’t deserve, but was taking anyways.  She had long since known that what she did wasn’t _right_ , that the life she lived had destroyed so many others.  It had gnawed at her in the darkest of nights, in those long and lonely hours when she was forced to really _think_ about what she did.  But she had always been able to justify somehow.  There had always been a sense, when it had been a matter of them or her, that they were just as bad as she was.  

Not with Steve though, and while she logically knew her mission wasn’t Steve Rogers, it was Captain America, it had become hard to separate the two.  Steve wasn’t some terrible person who most likely deserved what was to come to him.  He was a good man, he was everything she _wasn’t._  It was a thought that weighed heavy on her as his hands threaded through her hair, as she listened to his heart beat in his chest, his arms warm and soothing around her frame.  As she took the love he so easily offered someone else.  Comfort that wasn’t _hers_ but she found herself unable to pull away from.  And while the thought tugged at her it was easy still, in Steve’s arms, to drift back into a dreamless sleep.     
  
Steve laid with her for a while as her breathing evened out and she drifted back off.  When he was certain she was fast asleep he gently untangled himself.  He sat on the edge of the bed and glanced down at her sleeping form.  The worry still tugged at him, and he chided himself because it was _normal,_ people got sick.  They got sick, and then they got better.  This wasn’t exactly a state of emergency, but he felt awful nonetheless.  He brushed some hair out of her face, happy to feel her skin still cool.  He forced himself to not be _that_ person who immediately wanted to call a doctor, to not fuss too much because he knew how much he had hated it when it had been him.  Still though if she didn’t get better in the next day or two he knew he would quickly become that person.   
  
He moved into the kitchen and set about cleaning up breakfast.  That done he showered and cleaned up, using the guest bathroom as to not disrupt Natalie.   Steve peeked his head into the bedroom to make sure she was still sleeping and headed into the living room.  He moved to the bookcase and pulled down a wooden box from the shelf.  He opened it, his dog tags and the compass he had carried during the war inside, along with a new addition.  His fingers curled around the small velvet box and he smiled a little to himself as he thought of the ring inside the box.  The ring he had purchased the day after the kitchen incident.  When Natalie had see the worst of him and stayed.  When he had realized that if he was idiotic enough to not run from her like he _should_ he might as well make the whole damn thing honest and official.  He had no plan, not yet at least.  It was just enough for him to know it was there.  He’d figure out the rest when he came to it.

His phone buzzed across the island and he set the box back on the shelf.  He moved to the island and picked up the device, a frown as he saw the message from Nick.

✉ Need you to come in.  
  
Steve typed out a reply.   
  
✉ Can it wait?   
  
It was the first time he’d ever given anything but a be right there.  It was the first time he asked for his duty to be put on hold.  The gravity of it was not lost on him.  But the thought of leaving her right then felt daunting and awful.   
  
✉ No.     
✉ Twenty minutes, Cap.   
  
Steve thumbed over the keyboard as he debated a reply.  But he thought better of it and set the phone down.  As much as  he didn’t _want_ to, he knew he _had_ to.   He moved back into the bedroom and came in just as Natalie had started to wake.  “Hey,” he said softly as he sunk down onto the bed beside her.   
  
“Hey,” she replied from her spot under the covers.  “Sorry for ruining breakfast,” she apologized.   
  
Steve shook his head.  “No, no… don’t even worry about it,” he assured her and caressed the side of her face for a moment before his expression turned into a small frown.  “I have to go in,” he said reluctantly. He hated the thought of leaving her, even if a bit of colour had returned to her face he still felt like he should be there.  “I’ll try to be quick,” he assured her.   
  
Natalia nodded.  She was struck by how much she didn’t want him to go.  Even if she felt a hundred times better after the hour or so she’d slept again.  She sat up in the bed, tucked her knees under her chin and forced a reassuring smile to her face.  Ever patient, ever kind, and ever understanding.   _Natalie_ would not make him feel bad about this.  “It’s okay, Steve,” she said.  “I’m feeling a lot better actually,” she added.  Which was not a lie.  She still felt _off,_ but the dizziness had subsided and she no longer felt like she needed to throw up.   
  
He let a hand rest on her arm and his thumb tapped a beat as he debated with himself.  He knew that unfortunately there was really no way around it.  But he hesitated nonetheless.  “Can I get you something before I go?” he asked.  “Make you something to eat?  You’re more than welcome to stay here but I can take you back to your place, if you want…”   
  
He was cut off as she laid her hand on his.  “It’s fine, Steve,” she said again.  She smiled a little at him when he met her gaze.  “I’m not hungry, but I know where the fridge is when I am, I’d rather stay here, and I’m probably just going to shower and get cleaned up and by then you should be back,” she added.  She held his gaze and gave him another small smile.     
  
Steve watched her close, still hesitant but he felt better at her words.  He leaned forward and pressed a chaste kiss to her lips.  His hands moved to cup her face as he pulled back and he gave her a tight lipped smile.  “I’ll be back as soon as I can, text me if you start to feel worse,” he said and then reluctantly left the room.   
  
Natalia waited until she heard the apartment door open and close before she ventured out of the bed.  She moved into the bathroom and showered, taking her time as the warm water did wonders to settle some of the aches in her bones.  Even more so to chase away the last of her dizziness.  Once out, dried off and dressed she set wasn’t quite sure what to do with herself.  She’d never been alone in Steve’s apartment before, at least outside a few minutes here and there while Steve showered or went downstairs to meet a delivery guy.   
  
She started to walk through the apartment.  She’d looked at things in his place before of course, but it was _different_ when she was left to her own devices.  Different now that she was… _compromised_ her thoughts provided.  She wandered into the kitchen and started a pot of coffee now that her stomach was settled.  There were a few dishes in the sink from the failed breakfast that Steve must have washed earlier and left to air dry.  She put them away, and the domesticity of the move weighed on her.   _Six days_ she reminded herself.  She thought of the gun hidden in her bag, the mission.  

_You never fail._

She stared at the only thing on Steve’s fridge, a photo booth strip that he had obviously gone out of his way to buy a magnet to even put up.  She could remember the moment vividly, how they’d squeezed into the small booth with Steve’s massive frame taking up most of the room.  They looked happy in the photos, big cheesy grins and their lips pressed together in the last frame.  They looked normal, like they were anyone else but Captain America and the woman sent to kill him.  She tore her eyes away from it as she heard the coffee finish.  
  
She poured herself a cup and moved into the living space.  She could remember the first time she had been invited into his apartment.  How clean and _unlived_ it looked.  How much it reminded her of her own living spaces, and how that thought gnawed at her over the weeks following.  Until it had finally hit her that Steve lived a cover as well; that everything true about Steve as a man was almost as well hidden as everything true about her.  It was better now she realized.  Slowly his apartment had gone from as clean as a hotel room to something more lived in.  There was a blanket that had been left haphazardly on the couch when they’d moved from it to the bed the night before.  One of Steve’s sketchbooks left on the coffee table next to a book she’d taken from his shelf the week before to read while he drew.  LIttle things that had taken a blank space and made it feel like a home.   
  
Her fingers danced along the back of the couch as she walked and then one of the shelves of the bookcase.  She set her cup down and reached for the small wooden box as it caught her eye.  It was simple in design but there was a beauty to the deep wood, the small lines carved in it.  It screamed out as one of the few things Steve would have bought as opposed to something put in the apartment for him.  She turned it over in her hand before she lifted the lid.  Her eyes took in the dog tags, the compass and then the little velvet box.  She knew she should leave it alone, that no good would come of opening the box.  But she pulled it out regardless and set the larger wooden box back on the shelf.     
  
She turned to lean against the bookcase as she inspected the velvet box.  She chewed on her lower lip, her heart hammered in her chest.  She tried to convince herself it could be something else entirely than what she was thinking - but she somehow knew that wasn’t the case.  Natalia chided herself for even letting it get to her as she opened the box and took in the ring.  A simple but elegant solitaire diamond and a platinum band, the kind of ring _Natalie_ would love to have on her hand.  The kind of ring she could _never_ have on her hand.  She found herself with her breath caught in her throat.

Still though, she took it out, slipped it onto her finger and let the beauty of it all wash over her.  The idea of it all, of being someone’s wife, of being someone who was loved enough to be given such a symbol of commitment.   Thoughts that were shortly replaced with her sobering reality and she tugged the ring off.  She forced herself to think of the gun in her bag, six days.   _You never fail._  But even as the thoughts which had become akin to a mantra swirled in her mind she snapped the box shut without the ring and put it back in the larger wooden one to place back where she had found.  And in a move she couldn’t explain she stuffed the ring in her pocket.  She forced her mind clear she picked up the book from the coffee table and laid down on the couch to read and wait for Steve to come back home.   
  


* * *

 

“How long?” she asked several hours later when Steve had made his way back home with news he had to head out for a mission in the morning.  She wondered if it came off as panicked as she felt right then.   
  
Steve shrugged a little from his spot next to her on the couch.  Her legs were in his lap and he rubbed idle circles against her shins.  “Week and a half… two tops,” he answered.  He wasn’t exactly thrilled about the idea of being gone that long, especially if Natalie was under the weather, but he didn’t much have a choice.  He couldn’t exactly call in for time off, not when they had a lead on the terrorist cell they had been tracking for a while now.      
  
The words hit her hard.  A week and a half.  Her six days were blown.  She had one day.   _One day._  She swallowed hard and she supposed it was a damn good thing Natalie was supposed to be crazy in love with the man so her inability to control the panic right then could be written off as something else.  “Okay,” she managed to get out.  She pressed her lips together as he mind _raced._  One night.  She had one night.  Tonight.  She had to kill him tonight.  She thought of the gun in her bag, the silencer.  The plan.

 _You never fail._  
  
Steve watched her and he hated how upset she appeared by the news.  The guilt of having to leave gnawed at him.  He shifted on the couch to snake an arm around her and lifted her up into his lap.  His hand moved to tuck her hair out of her face and he offered her a small smile.  “It’ll go quicker than we think,” he said quietly, and it was hard to tell if he was trying to convince her or himself.  He wondered if this would ever get easier.  Having to leave, having to walk out the door and know he might not walk back in.    
  
Her eyes fluttered shut as she let her forehead fall to his.  One night.  No matter what happened, it would all be over tonight.  Never again would someone take care of her, never again would she wake up wrapped in the warmth of his embrace, never again would she be with a man and _feel_ _something._  She wondered suddenly if he would run.  If he knew, if she told him, would he find enough of _Natalia_ to love that he would run.  Could they ever find somewhere far enough away that no one would find them.  But she knew he wouldn’t.  Men like Steve Rogers didn’t love broken, shattered, _terrible_ women like her.    
  
“You okay?” he asked after a long moment, her hands laced around the back of his neck tightly like she was terrified to let go, even for a second.  
  
Natalia nodded and lifted her head to look at him.  For the first time since she had been a child three words screamed in her mind.   _It wasn’t fair._  She searched his eyes as he looked at her with concern.  She thought of the ring in the pocket of her jeans, thought of the strip of photos on his fridge.  She thought of the night he had her up against the wall with that awful look in his  eyes and how much she had wanted to make it all better for him.  She thought of that first kiss, how desperate he had been and how now _she_ felt like the desperate one.  “Just - “ she started but paused to swallow against the lump in her throat. _Stop it,_ she chided herself. She was the Black Widow and the Black Widow did not cry.    
  
She rolled her hips forward against his, and leaned in so her lips brushed against his as she spoke again.  “Just give me something to miss,” she breathed out as she kissed him.  Hard, desperate.  Like the last time because she knew it damn well was.  He responded easily and his arms - strong and capable and she _knew_ no one would ever hold her again like he did - wrapped around her as he stood.  Her legs encircled his waist and he carried her toward the bedroom.  

Natalia knew she would regret it.  That it would only make things that much harder, but she allowed herself to get lost in him.  To fully and completely erase the line between Natalie and Natalia, to let herself come undone under his touch, his gaze, his lips.  Succeed or fail it would all be over that night.  There was no tomorrow, there was no future.  All she had was this night and she _wanted_ it.  The only thing she had, or would, ever take for herself.  And when she was alone, when she was lost in the darkness of her life and the horrors she committed she could look back on it and know that for one, brief, moment she was capable of something else.  She was capable of love.  


* * *

  


Steve slept.  Deeply.  Soundly.  Natalia chewed on her lip and watched the steady rise and fall of his chest.  She reached a hand and touched his cheek gently.  Traced fingers over his features as she tried to memorize them.  There was a thought that she could let it go.  That she could wait out the night and let him leave in the morning.  She could wait out her six days in his apartment and await her own death.  That his life was worth so much more than her own and maybe that was the way it was supposed to be.  Would it be so bad, to let them come for her.  Wouldn’t be so bad to simply be _gone._   
  
But it was so ingrained, the need to _survive._  The idea that failure was not an option.  Even with her doubts she pushed herself off the bed and began to enact the plan.  She opened the hidden pocket of her bag and pulled out the gun and screwed the silencer on.  “You never fail,” she said, barely a whisper in the dead of the night.  She moved back to the bed, stood at the foot while she watched Steve’s chest rise and fall.  He hadn’t moved an inch.  

She stepped carefully up the side of the bed. Her movements light and silent as she got into the bed and straddled his chest. _You never fail._ Natalia let out a slow breath and lifted the gun to Steve's forehead. It was easy. They had made it easy. Just a gentle squeeze of a trigger and that was that. He wouldn't be the first person she'd killed. Not by a long shot. The red in her ledger ran long and deep. What was one more mark. Why was she so unable to complete her mission.

 _Because you love him,_ came the unbridled response from the parts of her long thought lost forever. She pressed her lips together, steadied her arm and reminded herself that love was for children.

He moved. She froze. And as his eyes snapped open she found herself unable to move.  She came into focus as he woke; still as a statue and if it weren't for the gun in her hands as pretty as a picture as she straddled him in nothing but a pair of panties and a camisole.  But there _was_ a gun in her hands and his mind struggled to put it all together. Natalie, sweet and loving Natalie who had probably never hurt a fly in her life had a _gun_ in her hands.

Suddenly it all clicked.  Suddenly there was the sick, _awful_ realization that everything had been a lie.   She didn't love him. She hadn't meant a damn word of anything. This whole time he had thought his life was finally worth living again she had been waiting to do just this. He was as alone as he'd ever been.  Broken and pathetic. Desperate and idiotic.  His hand moved to the gun, fingers curled around the barrel of the silencer. She didn't even flinch and in that moment he _loathed_ her. Himself. Everything.

“Do it,” he said in a broken voice he didn't even recognize. He suddenly felt so tired. So lost and alone. So completely _exhausted_ by his own life with the realization that the _one_ good thing he thought he had, had never been his to begin with.

She held his gaze. Natalie… if that even was her name. Natalie with her eyes dark in a way he'd never seen before. Natalie with all her creamy skin that he had spent months memorizing.  Natalie who had woken such a want in him that he'd lost all sense of reason. Natalie who he had stupidly bought a _ring_ for.  The least she could do was finish her mission. “Do it…” he repeated, his voice breaking.

She had him. She goddamn _had_ him. But she couldn't. Whatever message from brain to finger needed to pull the trigger was one she couldn't muster. Natalia pulled the gun from his grip and tossed it to the bed as she leaned in to kiss him. He was still at first and she half expected him to shove her off of him. But he responded. He sat up and wrapped an arm around her as he kissed her back. Desperate, raw. They both knew it was _wrong_ but they couldn't let go.  They fumbled to hold on to each other, a light in the coming storm. “I'm sorry… I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry….” she found herself mumbling against his skin, her words muffled as he pulled her into him.

The sound of the window in the bedroom breaking pulled them apart. And Natalia reached for the gun again as SHIELD’s strike team flooded into the room. Shouts of _drop it_ and _get down_ filled the room and Natalia glanced between the assembled agents. She was woefully outnumbered and out armed. And before she could make any attempt to go through the agents regardless she found herself being roughly manhandled from the bed. She fought back but there was simply nowhere _to_ run as the other agents swarmed around her. A swift kick to her legs and she found herself on her knees.

Shell-shocked, which he knew wasn't a good way to be right then as his team swarmed the room, Steve could only watch in numb horror as she was pulled from the bed and brought down. Despite himself he winced at the sound of someone's - Rumlow, he'd realize shortly after - foot hit her. He scrambled up as though to help her but then stopped as the fact _she tried to kill him_ crashed down around him again. She tried to kill him and they had come to save him, only to find him in a compromising position.

“It's okay, we got her, Cap,” Rumlow said with a smug look on his face that Steve wanted to wipe the hell off. He glanced from Steve to the girl who still struggled despite the restraints, a sort of lecherous stare as he took in her state of dress and Steve's blood boiled. “She's pretty cute though,” Rumlow mused as he looked back at Steve. “And hey, at least you got laid, right…”

“Step aside, Agent Rumlow,” Fury’s voice boomed as he walked into the bedroom. And it was only his presence that kept Steve from shutting Brock up himself.

Rumlow moved and signaled for the others to take Natalia out of the room. Steve watched, helplessly, as the woman he loved was dragged away in restraints. As though he sensed Steve's trepidation he placed a soft, but pointed, hand on Steve’s shoulder and stood with them as they watched Natalia taken away.  

  
The room was deadly quiet once there was no one but Fury and Steve.  Steve for the life of him still couldn’t quite wrap his head around it.  How everything had _completely_ changed in ten minutes flat.  It was like waking up all over again, lost and out of touch in a world that had somehow irrevocably changed when he wasn't looking.

“Why don't you go get dressed, Captain,” Nick prompted and it took a minute for the words to register for Steve before he nodded slowly.

He moved into the ensuite and closed the door behind him. His hands gripped the edge of the counter, his head hung as he heard voices from the bedroom. He felt sick, rawer than he had ever felt before. His grip tightened on the counter as everything washed over him.

_Everything had been a lie._

He had been planning a future and she had been planning his death. Every look, every touch. Every kiss, every night they'd lost themselves in each other. It had all been a lie. Every _I love you,_ every whispered promise as they moved together. He had given her everything he had left to give and he'd been played for a fool.  She had never loved him, never  _wanted_ him.  She had just been biding her time to take him out.  It made sense as he let himself think of it.  Of course she hadn't been real.  No woman like Natalie would have ever wasted their time on a broken man like him.   _That_ was the truth, and he'd been an idiot to think ever for one second otherwise.

He could feel the bile rise in his throat and he barely made it to the toilet before he threw up. He pushed himself back up and moved back to the sink. He forced the desire to completely fall apart aside. Quietly he brushed his teeth and grabbed some clothes from the hamper. They were a bit rumpled but clean enough. He cleaned up as best he could and regarded his reflection in the mirror. He hated himself, hated the weak parts of him that had kept him from seeing the truth. He hated the desperate and lonely man who had been more than willing to believe what Natalie had sold him.

He didn't want to leave the ensuite, but he knew there was no way of hiding from reality forever. Idiotic as he might be, he was still Captain America. He had to own up to his own foolishness, his own shortcomings. He let out a shaky breath and excited the ensuite.

Fury waited for him, a jacket in hand that he passed off to Steve. “I've got a car waiting downstairs,” he stated.

Steve nodded as he pulled on the jacket.  He grabbed his keys and phone from the dresser. “Let's go then,” and without so much as a second glance back, he left the room.

  



	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is... short. Mini!update? The transition update before the big stuff next chapter.

Steve looked through the two way mirror his eyes locked on Natalie - he was sure that wasn't her name but he had yet to find it out - as she sat at the table in the holding room. Someone had given her some clothes, SHIELD issued sweats and a t-shirt. He watched her close, her hands on the table with zip ties holding her wrists together, a sight that despite himself still doesn't still well. Her feet are bare, shackles on her ankles. He narrowed his eyes as he looked at her face. Her gaze was hard and he struggled to find anything of the woman he loved in the stranger before him.

Everything was the same. The same features, the same blonde hair he'd run his fingers through a hundred times. The same lips he had kissed just as many. But yet there was nothing familiar. He didn't _know_ her - this woman before him. Hell, he didn't even know her _name._ She was a stranger and the woman he thought he had loved was gone - worse than gone. She hadn't even _existed_.  His hands curled and flexed against the ledge below the two way glass.  His mind was a mess. Jumbled thoughts that twisted, pulled, and didn't make a lick of sense.

He barely blinked as he watched her. Observed. Tried to put the puzzle together. His eyes roamed over her face again and he could see a bruise along her cheekbone. His grip tightened on the ledge as he wondered who had done it. Rumlow maybe. He felt sick. He felt sick because he looked at the mark on her face and _loathed_ it. He shouldn't care.  

The sound of the door opening pulled Steve from his thoughts and he turned to see Fury walk into the room. “Natalie Reynolds,” Fury’s voice echoed in the room as he dropped a file onto the small table. Steve moved to take a seat and he reached for the file. There was a moment of hesitation before he flipped it open.

“Otherwise known as Natalia Alianova Romanova, aka The Black Widow.”  There was a small pause, followed by a scoff. “Fitting, all things considered.”

Steve winced at the jab, his eyes locked on the photo that was paper clipped to the inside of the file. Just like the woman at the table on the other side of the glass, the image in the file photo was both recognizable and a complete stranger. He took in the vacant eyes that stared through the image, the blank expression. She was beautiful, he had always thought that, but it was a different sort now. Not a trace of the gentle warmth that Natalie had exuded. Just a cold, _dangerous,_ look in the eyes that stared up in the photograph.

“She's a graduate of what was called the Red Room. A now defunct training program, the last of their members scattered throughout the Russian espionage world,” Fury continued as Steve started to look through the file.  “This particular graduate is one of the KGB’s finest assassins.”

The Red Room wasn't just a training program Steve realized quickly. From what was in her file, hell on earth would be more accurate and he couldn't help how much reading some of the finer points _hurt._  Natalia he realized hadn't been _trained,_ she had been _broken._ She had been just a  _child_ when they'd taken her, her and dozens of other girls.  Orphans with no one to care if they were shaped and molded into monsters.  He felt sick at the idea of it.  He flipped through the pages upon pages of recent assassinations, ones they could trace to her and ones they were only assuming. None that had any real, concrete evidence of course - which he supposed was just a testament to how good she was.

The question that had been building in the back of his mind came to the forefront as he neared the end of the file. “How long did you know?” he asked without looking up.

Nick sighed and moved to look at Natalia on the other side of the glass. “We knew for a couple months that you had been seeing someone, but we only recently realized exactly who Natalie was,” he answered.

Steve pressed his lips together as he digested the information. “There is no mission tomorrow, is there,” he stated. Though he supposed today would be more accurate given the hour. Not that it mattered. He figured the briefing had been fake, a reason for him to seek out Natalie so the strike team would be certain she would be at his apartment.

Fury shook his head as he leaned against the edge of the table. “I'm sorry, Captain,” he offered.

Steve scoffed.  He flipped Natalia’s file shut and then stood to walk back to the glass. His eyes fell on her form at the table again. “What’s going to happen to her?” he asked after a long moment.

“You know the answer to that,” was Fury’s reply.

Steve's hands gripped the ledge again. Either SHIELD would do it, or they'd extradite her and let the Russians do it.  Either way Natalia Romanova’s days on this earth were numbered.   _She tried to kill you_ he reminded himself.  And his hand moved to rub at his forehead, where she’d held a gun to his head and almost pulled the trigger.   _But she didn’t._  For some reason, even with him all but _begging_ her to, she had changed her mind.  His eyes moved back to her form.  The stranger with the face of the woman he had loved.  He _wanted_ to be angry.  Angry would be easy.  Angry would be clean cut and uncomplicated.  Angry would let him walk away from this room and never think twice about it.    
  
And he was.  Angry.  He was so goddamn angry he could barely keep himself from punching a hole in the wall.  The problem was angry wasn’t the _only_ thing he was.  So where knowing Natalia’s fate shouldn’t bother him, it _did._  Where he shouldn’t give a damn about the ugly splotch across her face, the cuffs on her wrists and feet, he _did._    
  
“I want to talk to her,” he said solemnly as he glanced down to his hands on the ledge.  
  
He could hear Fury sigh as he stood.  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Captain,” Nick said as he walked over. “Compromised would be an understatement here and we both know it,” he added and placed a small item on the ledge.  
  
Steve glanced down to see the ring - _Natalie’s ring_ \- on the ledge.  He sucked in a breath.   _How_ Fury had found that was lost to him.  Save ransacking the entire apartment - which he honestly wouldn't put past the man.  He glanced to Nick.  “You went through my apartment,” he accused tersely.

There was the briefest moment when Fury’s expression betrayed his surprise. Barely, but it was there. “It was in her things, we had assumed…” he trailed off. Steve knew what he assumed. That it had been given to Natalie. But it hadn't. He let his eyes fall back on Natalia. _She_ had found the ring. She had _kept_ the ring.

“I want to talk to her,” Steve repeated as he picked up the ring and slipped it into his pocket. He didn't wait for Fury to dissuade him this time and he pushed past the other man to the door.

He stopped once he entered the interrogation room, the door clicked closed behind him. He knew she heard him come in, but she didn't move. She didn't look back to the door to see who had entered. Her gaze was locked forward and oh how he hated her in that moment. Hated that she could just _sit_ there like the world _wasn't completely falling apart._

Slowly he moved to sit in the chair across the table from her. Up close the bruise on her face was worse. He cringed. Up close he could see the marks where the cuffs chafed against her skin.  Up close it was just that more shockingly clear that this was not the woman he loved. But still… he couldn't be _just_ angry.  As much as he wanted to shut off the part of his brain that  _still_ cared, he couldn't.

“Why are you here?” she asked, her voice emotionless. Curt and to the point. She had assumed she'd seen the last of Steve Rogers. She had assumed he wouldn't _want_ to see her again, or even if he did that he wouldn't be allowed. SHIELD wasn't the KGB but she doubted they looked well on compromised agents regardless. Which was what Steve was in this situation. Compromised.

He didn't answer. His hands moved to the table and for a moment he found himself longing to touch hers. A move he thought better of and laced his on the table top instead. He looked up and caught her gaze. It _hurt._ In some gut wrenching awful way it just plain _hurt_ to look at her. And he had to swallow hard against a lump in his throat. He felt weak right then as he stared at her. Every inch the broken man who had _told_ her to end his life. Pathetic. He was pathetic. And as much as he hated her then, he hated himself more.

“Why didn't you do it?” he asked after a long moment. She'd had the shot. All she had to do was pull the trigger. But she didn't. Was he really supposed to believe it had _all_ been a lie, it had _all_ been an act when she couldn't complete the mission.

She didn't answer. His hands balled into fists as the anger coursed through his veins.  He wanted to scream at her. Yell at her to say something, _anything_ .  But no words came.  She held his gaze and he refused to be the one to break it. Those cold, _empty_ eyes that stared back at him and he _longed_ for the way they used to look at him. Full of love and warmth. Love he knew he would never seen again. Love that had been fake, but was all he would ever have. “You owe me that much at least,” he finally got out after a long moment, and he hated the waver in his voice.

“Do I?” she countered as her head tilted slightly.

He breathed through the anger that surged through him at the reply. “You know what they're going to do to you,” he replied. He wasn't sure if it was a threat, or a plea. _Give me something, anything. Anything to prove you're worth saving._

She scoffed and shook her head with a small roll of her eyes. “Please, your people will do nothing to me,” she countered. “They'll throw me back to the Russians to do their dirty work for them.”

Steve stiffened in the chair.  He knew it was wrong, he knew he _shouldn’t care._  But he did.  And the idea of what was about to happen to the woman in front of him filled him with immeasurable dread.  He wasn’t an idiot - he knew Natalia was a far cry from Natalie.  But it weighed on him nonetheless.  The idea that her days were severely numbered.  He felt desperate in his desire to change that.  A plan formulating before he could even think twice.  She couldn’t die.  He wouldn’t _let_ it happen.  Not when she had hesitated.  Not when she had breathed _I’m sorry_ over and over again into his skin.  

He watched her.  Natalia Romanova.  Taken as a child and taught to kill.  Taught to seduce idiot men like himself into just seeing the pretty face and not the lethal woman behind it.  He wondered if she’d ever had a choice about anything in her whole damn life.  Had she ever hesitated before?  Had she ever questioned.  Did she question now.  Did she wish, like he _wished_ for things to be different.  The ring in his pocket felt heavy.  The ring she had _kept._  A token of something that had been a lie, but maybe had been real still in some small way.  

He glanced down at his hands and then back at her after a moment.  “That night, in the kitchen,” he wouldn’t elaborate, not with the camera in the corner and he was sure Fury hanging on every word in the next room.  But he didn’t have to elaborate, he knew she would know what he was talking about.  “That was you, wasn’t it?” he asked quietly.  A brief moment when her guard had been down, when they had been Steve and Natalia, not Steve and Natalie.  He didn’t expect her to answer, but there was a flicker of emotion across her face.  Subtle, but still there.  That was all the answer he needed.

He nodded and let out a slow breath.  He couldn’t let SHIELD hand her over to the KGB.  He _wouldn’t_.  Natalia Romanova had never had a choice in her life.  She was about to get one.  But he knew it couldn't happen here.  Not with the cameras, not with Fury hovering.  Not when there were conversations they needed to have that he knew she would never have shackled at an interrogation table.   She was too on guard, too defensive.  And so was he.  Wordlessly he stood and walked out of the interrogation room.

It was no surprise to see Fury still in the other room and Steve brushed past him to pick up Natalia’s file.  “I need transport to the Denali safe house and seventy two hours alone with Romanova,” he instructed.    
  
It was also no surprise when a small laugh escaped Fury.  “And I need a vacation but neither of us is going to get what we want anytime soon,” he replied.

Steve turned and looked at the other man.  “I’m not asking,” he pointed out.

“And you don’t make those calls around here, Captain, I do,” Fury retorted curtly.  

Steve’s posture stiffened.  He had nothing and he _knew_ it.  All he had was some desperate and idiotic need to keep her safe, keep her _alive._ If he didn’t at least _try_ , well, he knew he would never be able to live with that.  He nodded back toward where Natalia sat in the other room as he started to talk.  “You said she’s the KGB’s finest, might be a good asset for SHIELD,” he pointed out.  Long shot, longest of the long, but worth a try.

“I don’t need a Russian assassin,” Nick pointed out.  “Even if you _could_ get her to defect.”

“Well if I can’t then you win anyways,” Steve countered.  “Seventy two hours.  If I can get her to turn herself over willingly, you give her a shot.  A God’s honest shot and if you still think you can’t use her then that’s your call.  If I can’t get her to defect, then you can send her back to the Russians,” he offered.  It wasn’t perfect and he knew damn well even if he convinced Natalia to defect chances were Fury wouldn’t find use for her regardless.  But it would buy time at the very least.  

There was a long pause before Fury finally nodded.  “Forty eight.”  
  
Steve nodded.  “Forty eight,” he repeated and then left the room to go make the arrangements.  


	7. Chapter 7

The safe house in Denali wasn't exactly that in the traditional sense - accessible only by helicopter and too far off the beaten path to provide a place to run too easily. But it provided a good place for an agent to hide out if needed, or even just to take a few days off the grid to recharge. Steve figured it was the perfect place for what he had in mind.  Time with Natalia away from prying eyes, time to maybe make her consider the idea of defecting.  He knew it was a long shot at best, but one he had to take anyways.  

Natalia watched the wilderness below them as the helicopter flew them.  Even if she could slip away from Steve - which she figured the chances of being slim to none now that he knew who she really was - there would be nowhere  _ to  _ run.  And she was half convinced the pilot was taking the long way just to hammer that fact home. She leaned back in the seat and glanced at Steve out of the corner of her eye. He had his own eyes locked out the window next to him. Beside him the imposing figure of Nick Fury sat, making no attempt of trying to hide how his gaze bore into her. 

Natalia steeled her expression into a passive neutrality and let her gaze meet Fury’s. She had seen images of him before of course. But there was something very different about seeing him in person. His expression was unreadable, but she could sense his curiosity. She supposed maybe he could say the same of her. Nick Fury, director of SHIELD, who put enough stock in Captain America's opinions to not just immediately toss her back to her people. 

“Prepare for landing,” the pilot's voice said over the headsets they wore and Natalia looked back out the window again as they approached the modest property.  

Once they landed there was the usual hubbub of getting things organized.  There wasn’t a lot of stuff to carry into the house, just a bag for Steve and one Fury handed her that she assumed was clothes for herself.  They made the short trek into the house and Natalia leaned against the wall of the living space as she watched Steve and Fury talk low amongst themselves.  She gave a glance around the house, or at least what she could see from the living space.  Which was quite a bit given the property's open concept.  It was modest enough, full of light from the large windows, and were the situation different she figured it would be a lovely spot to get away from everything.     
  
Fury looked her way and she met his gaze.  She knew he didn’t want to leave them, that she was considered a risk.  Even  _ here. _  A loose cannon and hell even if there was nowhere for her to run, she figured he must be thinking that there was still more than ample chance to complete her mission regardless.  Even if she did, she knew it would still be a failure in the eyes of her handlers.  Too messy, too much collateral.  

She glanced down, her feet against the hardwood and when she looked up Fury was saying goodbye to Steve.  And then suddenly they were alone, the sound of the helicopter taking off echoed in the house.  Natalia’s fingers curled tighter around the strap of the bag Fury had handed her. She looked at Steve.  It was easy to see the way the past day weighed on him and she felt…  _ something. _ __ Guilt. Shame. And more disturbing like she wanted to make it better. But she couldn't. And she shouldn't even  _ want  _ to.  So instead she looked at him and reminded herself of her failure. Of her shortcomings. She tried to blame  _ him  _ for them.  It was his fault, he had done something to her, tricked her and made her doubt her orders and she tried to be  _ angry _ for that.  Angry so she wouldn’t have room to feel anything else.  And for a moment it even worked. 

“You shouldn't have brought me here,” she said coldly as she held his gaze. She turned and walked away before he could say anything in reply. 

There were two rooms down the hall and she slipped into the first, shutting the door behind her. She tossed the bag onto the bed and sunk down beside it as she sighed. She knew what Steve wanted - some misguided notion that she could defect, swear loyalty to the Americans and somehow it would all be  _ okay. _  Like it would be just that  _ easy  _ for her to turn her back against everything she knew. Like it would be just that  _ easy _ for a man like Nick Fury to absolve her of her crimes.  She could never be a part of SHIELD.  She was the enemy, and even if -  _ if _ \- Nick Fury could see past her attempt on the good Captain’s life, she doubted anyone else would.  Steve’s plan was nothing more than grasping at straws.  It was a desperate dream of a desperate man and she knew that.  Even if she was willing to all but beg for her damn life. 

She chewed on the inside of her lip. What she  _ should  _ have done, she realized, was just take the damn shot when she'd had it. But even as she replayed it now she knew, she  _ knew _ , she had done the right thing. A sentiment that she wasn't sure how to handle. Because if letting Steve live was the right thing, then where did that leave her.  Suddenly she was questioning every mission, every mark, her whole _ life.  _  Suddenly she wasn’t sure of anything.

Natalia pressed her lips together and bolted up from the bed as a wave of nausea hit her. She barely made it to the ensuite before she dry heaved into the toilet. With not much in her stomach there wasn't much to throw up, and the taste of bile stung at the back of her throat.  She laid on the cool floor, her mind too much of a jumbled mess to even really  _ think _ about the illness that still plagued her.  Not that it would even matter, being sick.  Soon she wouldn’t be  _ anything _ .  

When the queasy feeling passed she pulled herself back up.  She rummaged through the drawers and found a toothbrush. She pulled it out of the package and used the toothpaste on the counter to brush her teeth. Her hands gripped at the counter top for a moment as another wave of nausea threatened but it passed. She tugged off the sweater and shirt that had been given to her, figuring she could use a shower. But she paused as her eyes settled on the small red mark Steve had sucked into her skin, just below her collarbone bone. Her fingers trailed over the mark, memories of what felt like a lifetime ago but had been just a day washed over her.   

She shook her head and quickly divested herself of the rest of her clothes. She knew it was silly, to let herself think about how his hands had felt all over her body, the way they moved together - like they had  _ fit  _ in some cliche way.  She knew she shouldn’t think about how she’d had sex plenty of times in her life but how until Steve, she’d never known what it meant to  _ make love.   _ Even more wrong - the  _ worst  _ thing she could do right then -  was the silly little hesitation that she felt before she stepped into the shower. Fear of coming clean, fear of washing away the feel of him, the soft scent of his soap that clung to her skin.  That little fear that she was about to wash  _ him _ off of her. 

She chided herself and stepped under the warm water. Water that she increasingly turned hotter and hotter until she hit her threshold. The heat sent pinpricks across her skin, and she scrubbed hard with the loofa in the shower.  She should want him gone.  She should be glad to be rid of the feel of him.  After all, she always had been before.  The relief of washing away the feel of some man’s hands all over her body.  Touches that she hadn’t  _ really _ asked for.  Kisses that she hadn’t  _ really _ wanted.  She pressed her hands to the tile and let her head hang as the water washed over her.  Finally, when it had turned cool, she emerged.  The bathroom was filled with steam, her skin flush as she wrapped a towel around herself. 

Natalia dressed quickly in some of the clothes she found in the bag. A sweater that was a little too big for her but was comfy, and a pair of leggings. She was tempted to hide out in the room longer, but she needed something to drink and despite her earlier nausea she found herself hungry. And well, if these were her last days on earth she'd be damned if she'd spend them starving.

She made her way to kitchen, her footsteps light. So much so that she startled Steve when she cleared her throat as she walked in. He glanced away from the cupboard and over at her. She knew that he was probably  _ trying  _ to look impassive. But he was failing miserably.  The  _ pain _ in his expression at the sight of her was plain as day. So much more so now that they were here alone than it had been back at SHIELD.   _ Don’t care, _ she reminded herself.  She wrapped her arms around her midsection.  She sucked her lower lip between her teeth and broke the eye contact between them. She moved quietly into the kitchen, found a glass and filled it with water from the sink. She took a long drink as Steve went back to rummaging through the cupboard. 

“You hungry?” he asked, and much like his expression she could hear the forcing of neutrality to his tone.  He did, however, manage that better than when he looked at her. “I could make us something,” he offered. Like she hadn't just tried to kill him, like this was some vacation and not what it was. 

She shook her head. “No, I'm fine.”  Which wasn't exactly true. She was starving. But the thought of sitting down to dinner and  _ pretending  _ made her skin crawl. 

Steve shut the cupboard and turned to look at her. He leaned against the counter somewhat as he watched her.  There was an awkward silence between them, and it sat heavy in the room.  Finally Steve cleared his throat.  “I uh - I talked to Fury,” he started.  

Natalia nodded.  “I know,” she cut him off.  While Steve hadn’t exactly voiced his plan, it was easy to see where he was going with the whole thing.  She knew what he wanted of her, something that she would never be able to give.  

“And?” he asked, a brow raised.  

She scoffed and shook her head a little.  “You know I can’t,” she answered.  For so many reasons that whether if  _ she _ even  _ wanted _ to or not did not even factor in.  She looked back up at him, and despite the anguish of the past day and a bit plain on his face she could see the  _ hope _ there.  The optimism that maybe, just  _ maybe _ , he could save her.  She both loved and loathed it.  

“Can’t… or  _ won’t? _ ” he asked.  

She shrugged.  “Both,” she said after a moment. 

“Why?” he countered, standing up straighter as he crossed his arms across his chest.  “You know what will happen if you don’t even  _ try, _ ” he pointed out.  An echo of his statement from earlier in the interrogation room.  An echo of a fact that she  _ knew. _  She nodded slowly as she held his gaze, her own hard and cold.  Letting him know in no uncertain terms that she completely understood.  That she knew rejecting the offer before her was as good as signing her own death certificate.  “That doesn’t -” Steve started and had to look down as his voice wavered.  The toe of his shoe dug into the ground and she watched as his posture started to fall.  “It doesn’t bother you?” he asked after a pause and looked back at her.

Of  _ course _ it bothered her.  Of course she hated the idea of knowing her days were numbered.  For so long she had survived, she had done what she needed to do and for once she  _ couldn’t. _  She’d never had any grand illusions of living to some ripe old age, how could she with the life she lived.  She just hadn’t been prepared for how hard it felt to know she wouldn’t even hit thirty.  But these were things he couldn’t know.  Weaknesses that would be used against her and she couldn’t have that.  So she steeled her expression and thought of the one response that would end the conversation.  A low blow, but a needed blow.  “What, you’re the only one who’s allowed to want death?” she countered, her voice steady.     
  
He recoiled like she had physically  _ hit _ him, and guilt tugged at her but she didn’t dare let it show.  The memory of his expression as she’d held the gun to his head, the broken waver when he told her to do it washed over her but she forced herself to keep calm, to hold his gaze until he backed down and dropped his.  She set the glass down on the counter beside the sink and walked out of the kitchen.  

Natalia woke early the next morning after a restless attempt at sleep. She was surprised she even managed to get the few hours that she did. She forewent a shower in hope to get some food before Steve got up and ready. Having skipped out on eating because of their confrontation the night before, starving was an understatement.  As she dressed she rubbed her hand against a dull ache low in her back. One of the agents - Rumlow, she had heard someone call him - had been less than gentle when he'd brought her in. But then she'd been less than compliant, and she figured it was just another ache associated with that and didn't give it a second thought. 

The kitchen was thankfully empty when she made her way in.  She busied herself with making coffee and some toast. Found a fruit cup in the cupboard and called it good. It wasn't the fanciest breakfast, but it was food and that was enough.  

She cleaned up from her breakfast and after she wandered the rest of the house for a while she found herself outside. The house was situated on the shore of a small, frozen, lake. Mountains surrounded the property and Natalia stood on the low deck that extended out the back of the house from the kitchen. It was cool, but not unbearable.  She had grabbed a quilt from the couch and wrapped it around her shoulders to keep her warm.  It was a beautiful spot.  Serene and quiet.  Reminded her a little of her homeland and that itself was a rather bittersweet thought. 

Steve didn't have a hope in hell of sneaking up on her as the dusting of snow crunched under his feet. He stopped next to her and handed her a mug of hot coffee which she accepted. His eyes settled out over the landscape and he took a drink from the mug he had brought out for himself. 

Natalia took a drink, the warmth of the liquid spreading through her. They stood there in silence - not exactly a  _ comfortable  _ one - for a few minutes before she spoke. “You read my file.”  It wasn't a question, wasn't an accusation. A fact. Because of course he would have. How much SHIELD would have had on her she couldn't know. But there would have been  _ something. _  Orphan girl, taken by the big, mean, Russians and forced to do their bidding.  Someone like Steve would of course see the tragedy, and not the dangerous woman who was the result.  

He nodded beside her. Affirmation to her statement. His head dropped for a moment as he thought again of the contents of said file. The horrors that he was sure were just the surface of what she had gone through. Fury had said the Red Room was defunct, and it was for the best. Steve would have had a hard time not going awol and making it defunct himself if it was still up and running. 

Natalia watched the emotion flicker across his features before she settled her gaze back forward. Objectively she knew the people who made her were monsters. That they had broken them in some irrecoverable way, the girls of the Red Room.  Broken them emotionally, broken them physically. Objectively she knew. It was harder to  _ feel  _ that though. Monsters or not, it was the only family she had ever known. The only  _ life  _ she had ever known. And if  _ they  _ were monsters, then what did that make  _ her.  _ How awful was  _ she _ if she couldn’t turn her back on them.  If she’d rather die a failure in their eyes than a traitor.  

She set the mug down on the rail of the deck and pulled the quilt around her tighter. “My fourth year in the Red Room they had a test. They  _ always  _ had tests but this one, this one was different. They took me and the other girls my age, there were fourteen of us all together. We had been together for years, we lived together, we were… friends.”  She paused as she thought about the girls again. The faces that haunted her even now.  Natalia knew she had done terrible things in her life.  So many things she simply tried not to think about.  There was a fear there, that letting even just one thing in would let it all in.  A fear she now lived, since Steve had proven to be that  _ one thing.   _

“They dropped us in the tundra, a two week walk from home with only enough supplies for one.”  She said the words plainly, and prayed her tone didn’t waver.  Steve needed to know - without doubt, without hesitation - just the kind of monster he was so desperate to save.  

Steve inhaled sharply at the story. At the realization of what her being alive meant.  Fourteen girls and only one, the one who stood beside him, had made it back.  He felt sick, physically  _ sick _ , as he thought of the kind of people who would do that to children.  He looked to Natalia beside him, her face expressionless but her eyes troubled as she looked out over the frozen lake.  He thought back to every night she held him as he shivered, as he was lost to his memories of being locked in the ice.  Did she ever wake up the same, lost in the cold with no way to get out.     

He let his gaze fall back over the lake, shifted his weight and pressed his lips together before he spoke.  He knew what she was trying to do.  Change his mind, his opinion of her.  “You didn't have a choice,” he said evenly. 

Natalia shook her head a little. “Yes I did.”  Her lips pressed together as she swallowed hard against a sudden lump in her throat. It had been  _ years, _ but she hadn't forgotten a single moment of those two weeks. There had been choices.  There had been moments where nature took its course but there had been choices.  Choices  _ she _ had made.  

“It was -” Steve trailed off as he struggled for how to word it. He shrugged helplessly. 

“Me or them,” Natalia provided and he nodded. 

She was quiet for a long moment before she spoke again. “Sometimes I think it should have been one of them,” she admitted softly.  The first time she had ever voiced such a thought.  

“Natalia…” Steve started beside her and she caught him as he turned to look at her from the corner of her eye.  His tone was gentle, worried even.  She couldn’t have that.  

“Thirteen girls, Steve,” she cut him off, a harsh reminder of the moral of the story. “I let thirteen girls die so I could live… I  _ killed _ some of them so I could live,” she turned to face him. “ _ Girls, _ ” she stressed.  “Children, they were  _ children. _  Still think I'm worth saving?” she asked. She held his gaze for a moment, watched as her words sunk in before she walked back into the house. 

She wasn't that far into the kitchen when Steve caught up with her. He grabbed her by the arm and spun her around to face him. “Yes,” he answered. “Children,” he repeated, “ _ you _ were a  _ child,  _ Natalia,” he said, his voice impassioned as he searched her eyes. “What they did to you,” he continued, and she could hear the venom in his tone, the  _ anger _ .  Not at her, no, at ghosts of her past. “No one should have to go through that.”  He held her gaze and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to kiss him or hit him.  Steve goddamn Rogers who wouldn’t even let her have this.  Who still looked at her like she was  _ worth something. _

Natalia twisted her arm from his grip and took a step back. “And what about what I did to  _ you _ ?” she spat back. “God, Steve, you're angry but you're angry at entirely the wrong thing,” she shouted as she raised her hands in frustration. “You should be leading the charge against me, not trying to save me from it.”  She held his gaze, her eyes hard and cold and his… well… he kept looking at her like he could  _ fix _ her -  fix  _ them _ \- and it twisted, turned, in her stomach but also fueled her.  She wanted him to be angry, she wanted him to hate her.  She wanted him to have as much blame and contempt for her as she did for herself.  It would be so much easier if he could just  _ hate _ her.

Steve didn't reply and she took advantage of the pause to keep attacking.  To keep pushing his buttons and force him away from this silly little notion that she was anyone worth saving. “I  _ lied  _ to you, I manipulated you and made you fall in love with a woman who wasn't even real.  I told you I wanted a future with you when I was waiting for the moment to end your life.”  She paused for a moment as she watched the words sink into Steve, as she watched his expression change and harden as she stared up at him.  Finally she went for the one she knew would tip the scales.  Steve Rogers, the virgin who had given it away to a woman in the back of a truck.  She wrapped herself in the anger she knew it would make  _ him _ feel, used it to force away the guilt that gnawed at her, the way  _ she _ felt sick with what she had done.  She took a step forward, her words pointed and downright cruel, but she couldn’t stop now.  “We were  _ physical _ , and I was lying the whole damn time…”

“Of  _ course _ I'm angry!” he cut her off, his eyes narrowed. He flexed his hands at his sides as he let that anger in. Let the rage that he had pushed aside finally take hold. “I loved you!  I was wanted to  _ marry  _ you. For the first time in my whole pathetic life I actually saw a future. A future with you.  You - God, Natalie, you were  _ everything _ !”  He stiffened as he realized what he said, the name that wasn't hers. That wasn't anyone's at all.  Natalie, he reminded himself, didn't exist.  Natalie who had seemed too good to be true because she was.  Again the weight of being played for a fool crashed down on him.  The bitter, self loathing that came with knowing how  _ wrong _ he had been about everything, how much of an idiot he was.  He replayed all those moments when he had wondered how someone like Natalie could have ever loved someone like  _ him. _  Those moments when he should have listened to the doubt that had plagued him, instead of chalking it up to his own insecurities. 

“Natalia,” he corrected as he turned and his hands moved to grip the counter. He let out a slow and shaky breath.  She had been everything, he had put every last bit of hope and faith he’d had left in her and it had blown up in his face.  More than that she had been the  _ first. _  The first woman he had loved, truly.  Of course there had been Peggy, but it had been a dream even back then and he knew it.  Natalie had felt  _ real, _ tangible.  A  _ now _ instead of some vague when we go home,  _ after the war.  _  Someone who knew him  _ now _ , who knew him at his worst and still wanted him.  Who didn’t care that he was broken and bent and lost to his own demons.  

“I waited,” he admitted quietly, his head hung low.  He had known waiting to be married had been pushing it, he had made his peace with that, but still he had waited for love.  He had waited for a connection, for the knowing the person he gave himself to had a damn good chance of being his  _ only. _  His fingers gripped at the edge of the counter and he let out a slow breath. “I  _ waited  _ for when it would mean something, because I'm an old fashioned idiot who thought it should  _ mean  _ something…” he turned back to look at her.  “And in the end...” he trailed off again, unable to say the words.  Not when his head spun like this, not when he couldn’t tell her lies from her truths and that small bit of hope still burned that it hadn’t  _ all _ been a lie.  “So yeah, Natalia, I'm angry,” he went with instead.  Words he knew should have come as a yell, but instead came out tired and defeated.   
  
“Then be angry!” she all but yelled in reply.  “Stop trying to  _ save _ me and just be angry,” she continued.  “Just let me go, Steve,” she added, almost pleading.  

“I can’t!” he shouted and immediately turned back around to avoid her eyes.  He sighed as his hands moved back to the counter, and he collapsed his weight into his arms.  “I can’t,” he repeated, helplessly.  And oh how it would be so much easier if he just  _ could. _  He wanted to.  He wanted to let what was going to happen, happen.  Walk away and wipe his hands of this whole goddamn mess, but he couldn’t.     
  
“Why not,” she retorted and as she spoke it, it dawned on her.  “Because you don’t want this on your hands,” she said slowly.  She huffed a breath.  “Because if I say yes to your asinine plan and  _ beg _ Fury to give me a chance then it’s on me and him and not you, that’s what it is, isn’t it… what else could it be other than -”    
  
“Because I still love you!” he cut her off with a shout as he spun back around to face her.  He didn’t dare breathe, he didn’t dare move as he stared her down.  He watched as the words sunk in, the hesitation, the surprise, the small and oh so subtle little flicker of what he could swear was something akin to bittersweet happiness.

She was quiet, speechless maybe.  Until a sharp laugh bubbled up in her throat.  Steve frowned and she pressed a hand to her mouth before she spoke.  “Fuck, Steve, you  _ really _ need to get a handle and learn how to separate who you  _ think _ I am from who I  _ really _ am,” she pointed out, her tone curt.   
  
Steve moved toward her and Natalia took a step back.  One he made up and she found herself quickly backed up against the fridge with Steve’s gaze hard on her.  “I’m not the only one who needs to separate,” he pointed out.  His heart hammered, his mouth dry.  “I’m not the only one who’s  _ compromised, _ am I?”   
  
Natalia stiffened under his gaze.  The way his eyes bore into her, seeing things she didn’t want him to see.  She felt knocked off balance by him.  By the words he spoke that were the truth, a truth she had struggled with for so long now.  But she didn’t dare drop her own gaze, she didn’t dare let him  _ win. _  “You don’t know anything about me,” she replied tersely.   
  
“I know everything you don’t want me to,”  he closed the space between them, the little that there was.  “It’s been different,” he pointed out.  “ _ You’ve _ been different.  Subtle, small things, but different,” he kept his eyes on her as he talked.  “Things I didn’t notice at first, things that only make sense now.  Little bits of  _ you _ that started sneaking their way into  _ her. _ ”  

She shook her head, but he didn’t give her the chance to protest.  “You had the shot.  You  _ more  _ than had the shot,” he swallowed and only then did he break their eye contact, a downward glance as the shame of his actions washed over his face.  “I would have let you, I  _ asked _ you to do it, and you didn’t,” he pointed out as he looked back at her.  “So tell me, Natalia, tell me that I’m only one who can’t seperate, tell me that I’m the only one compromised.”  His hands had moved to either side of her on the fridge, boxing her into his space.  “Tell me that there’s not some part of you that wasn’t just lying, pretending.  Tell me that there’s not a part of you that doesn’t care, that doesn’t…” he trailed off before he could say it.  Love.  A huge accusation.  One he chickened out of at the last moment.   


“I don’t love you,” she vowed.  He was so close she could  _ feel _ his heart hammer, though she supposed he could feel hers.  She blinked rapidly and looked down as emotions flowed through her, emotions she had tried so hard to keep at bay.  The emotions that had been tugging at her for weeks now, making her question, making her feel things she knew were wrong.  Emotions she didn’t even know how to voice or define.  “But I always will,” she added and her voice shook, cracked with the weight of the confession.     


Steve’s hand moved behind her neck and he pressed his lips to hers.  She hesitated for the briefest moment but then let herself get swept up in him.  Her own hands laced around his neck and he used his free arm to cup around her ass and lifted her up.  His tongue darted into her mouth and he swallowed her moan as he moved her to the counter to set her back down.  Her hands moved, tugged at the hem of his shirt and they parted so she could lift it off of him.  “We - we shouldn’t -” she tried to protest but he didn’t give her a chance to get far with it as he kissed her fiercely.     
  
Her legs hooked around his midsection as her hands all but clawed at him, trying to get him as close as she could.  She wanted to drown in him, forget everything and everyone.  Forget how  _ wrong _ it was and just let herself marvel in how  _ right _ he felt under her hands.  A flat palm pressed in her back, tugged her in closer and she hissed a breath as she pulled back sharply when his other hand curled above her hip and pressed into the bruise there.   
  
He immediately pulled back and lifted her shirt.  His eyebrows knitted together as he took in the ugly purple splotch.  His postured stiffened and he ran a thumb gently above the mark as he looked up at her, the question in his eyes. 

She shook her head.  “It doesn’t matter,” she said plainly.  She had resisted, it was bound to happen.   
  
“Which agent?” he asked her, his voice low and she’d be a liar to say there wasn’t a little thrill that went through her at the way he sounded like he wanted nothing more than to do the same, or  _ more _ , to them.     
  
“It doesn’t matter,” she repeated again and used her legs hooked around him to try to pull him in again.   
  
“It does to me,” he pointed out, his thumb still hovered lightly above the mark.  

  
She bit at her lower lip.  “Rumlow,” she answered after a pause and watched as Steve’s face contorted somewhat.  Anger, the resignation of his hunch being right she supposed.  She pressed a hand lightly to the side of his face and waited until he looked at her before she spoke again.  “It’s fine, Steve.   _ I’m  _ fine,” she assured him.  She’d had worse.  She would  _ have _ worse soon enough.  In the grand scheme of her final days a bruise on her side was nothing.  She didn’t give him a chance to question further and claimed his lips again with hers.  A tactic that worked.    
  
Steve lifted her once again, more gentle this time, and their lips still bushing against each others he carried her down the hall to his room. He laid her down gently on the bed and she moved on top of him when he moved beside her. She curled her fingers along the hem of her shirt and pulled it off. She noticed his eyes move back to the bruise and she was quick to distract him as she let her lips trail down the side of his neck.  

His hands roamed her body and he moaned at the feel of her mouth against his chest. He knew that she was right, that they shouldn't do what they were about to do. But he didn't care. He felt weak, lost and adrift and her touch anchored him back to the world. She leaned up, and he brought a hand to cup her cheek as they looked at each other. “You're so beautiful,” he said softly, his thumb rubbing against her lower lip. 

“Steve…” she breathed out as she kissed the tip of his thumb. 

He lifted himself up and gently maneuvered them so Natalia was on her back. He trailed his hands up her side, a small and satisfied smile toyed on his lips as she moaned.  His thumbs brushed against her nipples and he leaned down to kiss her. Slow, his tongue slipped along hers as his hand slid down her ribs, over her abdomen and lightly ran along the waist of her leggings. He moved down her body, pausing to suck a nipple between his lips, to press feather light kisses to the bruise on her side. He tugged her leggings and panties off, tossed them to the floor. 

“ _ Steve… _ ” she said again,  _ whimpered, _ really as he brushed his lips against the inside of her thigh before he sucked a mark into the skin. Her fingers curled into the short strands of his hair with a gentle tug. 

He nuzzled his face against the skin of her thigh and his fingers gave a teasing brush through her pubic hair and then along her slick heat. She moaned, bucked her hips against the contact - wanting  _ more.  _ And Steve, the ass he was, kept on teasing. Small little touches, a flick of the pad of his thumb against her clit, his mouth so close but yet not right where she wanted it. He slid two fingers into her, a few slow and torturous thrusts as she whimpered and twisted against the sheet. 

“Please…” she breathed out, a moan as he lapped his tongue against her sensitive clit. Once, twice, before he pressed his mouth to the skin her of thigh again.  Her grip on the strands of his hair tightened and he ran his tongue through her wet folds, slowly, before he finally sucked her clit between his lips. 

She moaned and then hissed a sharp breath in as he slid his fingers into her again. She was close, abashedly so with his teasing. So it didn't take long for her to come apart under his touch. “Don't… God, Steve… don't stop…” she mumbled between ragged gasps as she neared climax. Her body shook as she came, and his hands held her steady. 

Steve shimmied out of his pants and sat back on the bed. He reached for her hands and pulled her up into his lap. His cock was hard and pressed against her, his lips teased at the spot between her neck and shoulder. Her hands pressed into the muscles of his back. All his hard lines and taut skin. Such a stark contrast to the gentle way he could hold her, touch her. Always careful with her in his arms. 

She slid her hand between them and guided his cock into her. She was still more than wet enough to accommodate him and she caught his eye as they sat still for a moment. His hands raked through her hair and his head fell against her chest as he let himself memorize this moment, the feel of her. He committed it to memory, some bittersweet moment to come back to when his life went back to endless lonely days and even emptier nights.

“Natalia...” he spoke against her skin as she started to roll her hips. She bit her lower lip and closed her eyes against the pinpricks of wetness that collected at the sound of her name - her  _ real  _ name - on his lips like that. Reverent. The same way he had said Natalie so many times before. 

Steve lifted his head and looked up at her. He hand a hand behind her back and the other moved to linger along her jaw as he leaned up to kiss her. He moaned against her lips as she moved, sped up the roll of her hips and he bucked up his to meet hers. His teeth pulled her lower lip between them, a nip before he let go and his thumb brushed against her lip as his forehead fell to the bridge of her nose. “I love you, I love you,” he repeated as he nuzzled his face into the crook of her shoulder. 

“I love you…” she confessed, voice barely above a whisper.  She wrapped her arm tight around his back as they both sped up their movements. “Steve.. I'm close, so close…” she said with a whimper. 

He tugged her in closer and slipped a hand between them to rub his thumb against her clit. He groaned as she felt her walls tighten against his cock.  He came as she did, their lips danced against each others as they moved still, rolls of their hips with no real rhyme or reason, through their climax. Their foreheads pressed together as they came down, breaths ragged. 

They were quiet for a long moment. Fingers danced across their skin, lips pressing soft kisses.  Basking in what they both knew was stolen time. Finally Steve shifted, pulling out as he moved to stand up. He tugged his boxers back on while Natalia reached for the too large sweater she had worn the day before. He tugged her to him as they moved toward the door, pressed a deep kiss to her and smiled softly. 

They made dinner, or more accurately Steve made dinner while she sat on the counter and watched. Spaghetti they ate straight from the pot. A valiant attempt at a meal until Natalia had tugged him down to wipe a spot of sauce from the corner of his mouth with her finger. He sucked the digit between his lips and their food forgotten in favor of him fucking her on the counter. 

Steve pulled some blankets into the living room and they made a bed next to the fireplace. They made love - slow but desperate still somehow. Tinged with the knowing that this was all pretend. That it didn't matter if she took Steve up on his offer or not, they were still over the moment they left the safe house. They whispered words, and kissed into each others skin the things they couldn't say. 

  
Sated, they laid still in front of the fire, wrapped up in each other’s arms. And when Steve's breathing evened out and Natalia was certain he had fallen asleep she gently untangled herself. She watched him for a few minutes, lost in her own head. She leaned down and brushed her lips against his forehead. “I'm sorry,” she whispered, knowing full well what happened that night didn't change anything,  _ couldn't  _ change anything. She pulled her sweater back on and padded back down the hall to her room. She laid down on top of the covers, curled onto her side and fell into a restless sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Natasha's red room story is based off of the one mentioned in the civil war junior novelization and yes I'm still bitter it wasn't in the movie. And the dialogue that is lyrics from the song is obviously not mine.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is - sad. And I'm sorry. 
> 
> Trigger warning for miscarriage and blood. 
> 
> And I'm sorry. 
> 
> My tumblr is also myloveiamthespeedofsound and I have messaging on if anyone needs to discuss things before deciding whether or not to proceed. 
> 
> This chapter is a bit shorter, I wanted to isolate out this part so people can skip as needed.

The soft notes of Prokofiev being played on the piano echoed through the halls at Natalia walked through the large manor.  The place that had been her home, the only one she had ever known. The place that had been her hell.  Her hand grazed along the railing of the large staircase as she descended.  Down the stairs and to the right, then to the left and the doorway at the end. A path she had known well.  One she had taken more times than she could count.  A path ingrained in her even now. The sound of the piano grew louder as she walked the path, as she got closer to the doorway at the end.  

The room was large, wood floors and mirrors on one wall with the sinking sun of an early Russian winter evening filtering in through the windows that lined the opposite wall. With a hand delicately on the barre a young girl went through her exercises. Natalia moved into the room as she watched. The girl's expression in the mirror was blank and Natalia recognized the girl's features as her own.  

“Again,” came a voice from the back of the room, one she recognized and she mouthed along with the next words. “And watch your turnout, Natalia.”

The young girl ran through the exercises once more, her form perfect and her face lacking any emotion.  Beautiful, even a few years shy of being a woman, but already deadly. Already a killer.  Natalia turned to look over the rest of the room. Mikhail at the piano, and a row of girls along the wall as they awaited their turn, Madame B’s ever watchful eyes from her chair next to the piano. And then in the middle of the room, Steve on a chair. His hands bound behind him and his head hung low. 

“Steve,” she said in a panicked voice as she moved toward him quickly. She knelt down and pressed her hands to his face, forcing him to look up. But he did not look  _ at _ her. He looked  _ through _ her. And as Natalia turned her head she saw why. 

The young girl had turned to face them, a gun in her hands and her gaze hard as she looked at Steve. “No,” Natalia insisted. She looked back to Steve and pressed her hands to his face as she tried to catch his gaze. “Steve… Steve look at me… I'm not going to let this happen, I promise…”  she said quickly, the panic clear in her tone as her words ran together. “Steve look at me…” she begged, her fingers gripping the sides of his face tight. 

“I am,” he replied simply, his eyes locked onto the young girl with the gun in her hands. 

She stood and turned to her younger self. “Please,” she started as she moved closer to the girl. “Please don't do this… you don't have to do this…” she pleaded. She felt desperate and she could hear it in her voice. A tone so unlike herself, a tone she had never thought she'd use. She could  _ feel _ the disapproving stares at it, from Madame B, from the other girls. The Black Widow, begging for a man's life. But still, she plead. “Please, I love him -”

“Love is for children,” the girl said and pulled the trigger. Her face was blank as the shot rang out, Devoid of any emotion or reaction. Impassive. Like she had been trained to be. 

“No!” Natalia screamed at the sound and she dropped back down in front of Steve. Her hands moved to his chest as the small pinprick of red started to spread.  “No, Steve - Steve, stay with me…” she said, her voice desperate as her hands pressed into his chest. His blood, red and warm, seeped over her fingers.

Natalia snapped awake by a sharp pain in her lower abdomen. She sat up in the bed, arms pressed her midsection as another cramp hit. She bit her lower lip at the sensation - far more than any cramping she'd had before. And as another one hit a small cry escaped her lips. She shifted in the bed in a desperate bid to get comfortable and as she did she could feel a warmth pool between her legs. With a shaky breath she slid a hand down and she cried out again when she pulled it back, red on her fingers.  The last remnants of her nightmare lingered and it took her some time to realize that the blood was not Steve's, but  _ hers. _

She scrambled out of the bed and tried to move as quickly as she could into the bathroom.  She stumbled, stubbed her toe on the door frame as another cramp hit and she half fell against the counter. Her hands pressed into the edge and she hissed a sharp breath as another cramp hit. It  _ hurt _ .  It hurt in a way so unlike anything else in her life had hurt and her mind struggled to put the pieces together. To find the answer that was  _ there  _ but still just out of reach somehow. 

Her first thought went to her period - but it was the 20th. Which, she realized with a sense of dread, put her nearly a month late. And as another sharp pain shot through her and she gripped the counter, she realized she wasn't just a month late. She was two months late. She'd gotten so wrapped up in her cover life she hadn't even noticed, had gotten so wrapped up in her changing emotions toward Steve she had lost track of everything else.  And now?  The nausea, the fatigued feeling...

She was pregnant.  An impossibility on its own.  But a reality and she don't need some test to know, she just  _ knew.  _  She was pregnant.  And something was going very, very wrong. 

Tears pinpricked in her eyes. Panic started to pull her under as it all crashed down. Pregnant.  A possibility that the Red Room had taken from her but somehow had happened anyways.  The how and why was lost on her. The how and why didn't matter then. All that mattered was that it had happened. Somehow it had happened. But this - the pain, the blood - this wasn't right and she knew it.  

Her breath started to come in ragged gasps as she struggled to get air into her lungs.  She was aware of the warm wetness between her thighs and the feel of it flowing down her legs, just as she was aware of the smell of copper as it assaulted her senses, but it didn't feel real somehow. And as she found herself falling into more and more of a dissociative state - shock she would realize if she was capable of the thought process -  the struggle to get air got worse and worse and she could feel the world start to blacken around the edges.

Her hands gripped the counter as her legs threatened to give out on her. Her fingers tingled, her lungs burned and ached.  Her knees buckled and she couldn't keep herself upright any longer as she fell to a heap on the floor. She forced herself to the situation at hand. The parts of it she could handle. The parts that had a solution. 

Shower. She needed to shower. Her legs were covered with blood, and there was some on the floor but there was nothing she could do about that now.  Logically she knew what was happening to her, to the baby she hadn't even known existed until it was too late. She also knew logically there was nothing she could do. They were too far from anything - anyone who could help.  She could get into the shower though.  So she managed to work through the pain and the haze and shed herself of her clothes. She pulled herself up and made her way into the walk in shower and turned the water on. 

She watched, with a heart heavy in some life altering way, as blood mingled with the water and ran down the drain.  She didn't know how to feel. She didn't know how to come to terms with what was occurring.  How she could be losing something she had just found.  How she could feel  _ so much _ pain for something that never should have been in the first place. She didn't know how to handle the very real fact that she had been pregnant. And now she wasn't.

 

* * *

 

Steve stirred in the makeshift bed on the living room floor. He reached a hand for Natalia but finding no one beside him he rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. He wasn't surprised really, that she had snuck away. But it stung regardless. He rubbed the back of his palm against his eyes before he pushed himself up, heavy with the reality that awaited them in the morning. He tugged on his boxers and started down the hall toward his room, but the sound of the shower running caused him to pause. It was late - or early maybe depending on how one wanted to look at it.  Either way it wasn't exactly the time of day when one would normally be showering. 

He hesitated as he debated but  _ something  _ in him, some gut feeling maybe, made him push open the door to Natalia’s room. He stepped in and as he did the jumble of her blankets - and the  _ red _ that stained them came into view. Panic immediately gripped him at the sight of the blood, worry that she had hurt herself somehow and he moved quickly to the ensuite. 

He could see more blood on the tile floor, her clothes in a heap and the panic only grew. Steve pushed open the door of the walk in shower and he knelt down beside Natalia where she was sitting against the wall. “What happened,” he asked, the panic clear in his tone and his eyes wide as he took her in. “Are you hurt - are you cut -” he continued as he pried her arms from around her legs to try to look for an injury. 

She didn't respond, her limbs stiff as he tried to look her over, tried to find the source of the bleeding. “Natalia…” he coaxed. “Natalia what  _ happened  _ -” he tried again and trailed off as he found no noticeable injury on her. His hands lingered on her arms even as she curled back into herself against the wall. It was only as she moved that he spotted, barely, a smear of blood along the inside of her thigh and suddenly it hit him. Like a punch. Like the bullet she had never fired only days ago finally finding purchase.  He sucked in a breath as it coiled in his stomach, spread through him and he wanted to be sick. 

It was only then that she looked up at him. Her eyes vacant and unfocused. He realized then that her body shook. Trembled. He realized then that the water was nearly ice cold. He reached up and turned the tap and as the water turned hot he moved to sit against the wall beside her. 

Natalia pressed herself into his side and he lifted an arm to wrap around her shaking form.  Her sobs echoed in the shower, her tears hot against the skin of his chest even with the water hitting them both.  He swallowed hard against the lump in his throat. Blinked hard against his own tears that threatened to fall. Tried to keep himself from unraveling at the seams.  Mostly he tried desperately to figure out how come to terms with an idea and grieve it all at once. 

He thought back to how she had been sick. What he had dismissed as a run of the mill upset stomach, or the start of a flu had been so much  _ more _ , and he loathed himself for not insisting on taking her to the doctor. Maybe if he had he could have stopped the tragedy at hand. Maybe he could have saved… he shook as his thoughts went down the path. Would it have?   _ Changed anything? _  What would he have done if he had know. What would  _ she  _ have done?  And the sinking thought of  _ had  _ she known.  Had she known even as she kept lying.  Even as she held a gun to his head with the intention of ending his life. Did she know then that they had created one. 

But even still, even with the thoughts that lingered in his mind he didn't let go of her. His arms tightened around her as her body shook. He clung to her as she clung to him. Whatever questions he had right then they didn't matter. There was only the overwhelming sense of loss. There was only the pain and the small comfort they could find in the only other person who knew that pain. 

They stayed there, huddled together, until the water ran cold. Steve reached up and turned it off. He wanted to say something, but he knew there was nothing that  _ could  _ be said. He stood and helped Natalia out of the shower, reached for a towel and wrapped it around her before he grabbed one for himself. Wordlessly he went back into the room and found her new clothes.  She stood motionless as he came back in and made no move to take the clothes from him. It wasn't until he had removed the towel and gently tugged the shirt over her head that she snapped back to the present. She shimmied into the pants and stared blankly at him. 

Her bed was a disaster and he knew she couldn't stay in it. He didn't have the heart right then to deal with changing the blood stained sheets.  So he lifted her up, pressed her form against his chest - and how  _ tiny _ she felt right then - and carried her down the hall to his room. He placed her gently on the bed, pulled the duvet over her and turned to leave before her hand on his arm stopped him. Her fingers curled around his wrist, her skin ice cold and his breath hitched in his throat. 

“Stay,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. Steve swallowed hard.  He didn't want to stay. But he didn't want to leave either. He felt at once numb and filled with so much pain he thought he might scream. He wanted to hate her, to cling to the notion that maybe she had known and just be angry. Because angry seemed easier. And he wanted to comfort her, and to let her comfort him. But he didn't know  _ how. _

But her grip tightened on his wrist and her hands were so cold and he found himself nodding.  He quickly changed into a pair of sleep pants before he crawled into the bed beside her. They shifted, he spooned himself around her form.  Even under the duvet her skin was like ice. Shock. He pulled her in tight, willed the warmth from his body to hers.  He felt exhausted but he knew sleep would be elusive. He knew it would be for a long while. 

Natalia chewed on her lower lip. Her body felt raw, ravaged in some way she couldn't explain. The pain had lifted but still there was an ache. One that had settled so deep in her bones she wondered if it would ever fade.  She felt empty, aching. Lost in her grief, lost in the self deprecating thoughts that this was  _ all her fault. _  She thought of tomorrow. Of when the world would come for them.  And oh how she wanted the easy way out right then. The overbearing idea that she  _ deserved  _ it. So much more so now than before. 

But she knew she couldn't. As much as she wanted what was to come to her, the death she knew was only a fraction of the debt she owed, she knew it wouldn't be right. Steve would hold the guilt of it close to him, just like she knew he already had found a way to blame himself for what just happened. His guilt, the loss, the pain of both would already be so much to bear. She would not add her own death to that. She  _ couldn't. _

“Steve…” she started, her voice still barely above a whisper. Small and weighed down by her grief. He made a soft  _ mhmm, _ a prompt to continue. “I'll do it,” she said. She pressed her lips together, and shut her eyes hard against the fresh wave of tears that threatened to fall. She didn't want to. She was so damn tired and she didn't want to fight anymore. But his arms tightened around her and she knew she had to. She had to for  _ him. _  After all, she loved him. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> iamtheworst.gif

_had all and then most of you_   
_some and now none of you_   
_take me back to the night we met_   
_i don't know what i'm supposed to do_   
_haunted by the ghost of you_   
_oh, take me back to the night we met_   
_lord huron_

 

Sleep took a long time to come - for either of them.  Steve hadn’t even been sure he _would_ be able to drift off, even as he noticed Natalia’s breathing even out eventually. He didn’t much remember drifting off himself, but there’s light that filtered in through the drapes when Steve woke from the sleep he had finally fallen into, indicating that morning had come.  The room was quiet.  A different kind of quiet.  Quiet like the apartment had been the morning he’d come back after his Ma had died.  Quiet like the room he’d woken up in after the ice - despite the radio that had hummed and played and tried to sell a rouse.  A sort of heavy quiet.  Weighted and unflinching.  The kind of quiet that meant something had _happened._  Something had _changed_ . The line in the sand between _before_ and _after_ .     
  
The room was also empty.  The space in the bed beside him left abandoned and for that Steve found himself grateful.  A momentary pause.  Space to put his own jumbled thoughts and emotions into some semblance of an order before facing the reality of the situation.  He ran his hand down his face, eyes locked up on the ceiling above him.     
  
Was there an order?  Was there any _hope_ of an order he couldn’t help but wonder.

Natalie - _Natalia_ \- had been pregnant.  

He sighed, the noise louder than it should be in the silence, and pushed himself to sit, legs swung over the side of the bed. The night before played over in his mind like some horror show and it was a fight to keep from throwing up.  His stomach twisted and knotted, worse than it had been even a few days ago when the truth of Natalie had come out.  He felt raw, exposed somehow.  Lost in some way he had never known - even more so than when he had woken up missing several decades.  

Something had been taken from him, something he hadn’t even realized was there to be taken in the first place.  Something irreplaceable.  Precious.  An idea that was larger than himself, larger than the fucked up situation between him and Natalia.  And it hurt.   _Ached_ in some irrecoverable way.  That there had been a life - small and vulnerable, unknown even to him - and now there wasn’t.  

His eyes glanced to the bedside clock.  

Five hours.  
  
Fury would be there in five hours and Steve hadn’t the first idea what he would even say to the other man.  Would the loss be written all over their faces.  Would Fury take one look at them and _know_ .     
  
He pushed himself off the bed, went through the motions of getting dressed.  Moved to the hall and paused outside the door of Natalia’s room.  Sheets a crumpled mess and from here he could see the stark red against the white.  Seconds ticked to minutes and he just _stared_ .  Finally he moved into the room and then into the bathroom.  Mechanical motions as he worked - wiped the dried blood on the floor with a towel, dug out a garbage bag from under the sink and tossed it into it.  Moved back into the bedroom and started to strip the bed, eyes unfocused on the task at hand, avoiding looking directly at the deep red of the dried blood and moving by muscle memory alone.   
  
He stopped suddenly.  Fingers curled around the ruined top sheet and his breath came in a ragged hitch, in a way he didn’t even _recognize_ and he sunk to the ground with a death grip on the sheet.  Unbridled images flashed through his mind - the hazy image of a child, all blonde hair and piercing green eyes, the tease of skin from a too big sweater as it slipped over a shoulder backlit by the late afternoon sun, skin kissed by the moonlight, the sound of Natalia - _Natalie_ \- as she talked to the young boys in her class… a ragdoll body manhandled by agents and the dark, angry bruise on pale skin.     
  
He hadn’t even realized he’d started crying until he heard the sob echoed in the room.  No, not _crying_ really.  Just noise.  He was past crying.  Just anguish locked inside of him desperate to escape through any opening.  Days of barely holding it together crashed down on him and he couldn’t pretend anymore.  Couldn’t keep the raw emotion of it at bay anymore.

Natalie had been perfect, and then she _wasn’t_ .     
Natalia had been pregnant, and then she _wasn’t_ .  
  
He quieted.  White knuckled with the grip on the sheet but still he didn’t move.  He’s not sure how much time passed.  Minutes, an hour.  Eventually he stood, shoved the sheet into the garbage bag and remade the bed with fresh linens.  He took the bag to the bin in the garage and moved to the kitchen.   
  
Natalia sat on the small window seat, and it’s that goddamn afternoon all over again.  Sweater slipped off a shoulder, backlit by the sun, fingers curled around a mug and Steve wanted to _scream_ .  Her head turned and then it was anything _but_ that goddamn afternoon.  He swallowed hard as he took in her expression.  Not a spy, not an agent, not Natalia and not Natalie… just a woman and a woman _broken_.

Steve sunk to sit beside her on the seat and Natalia shifted to give him room, bringing her knees up under her chin.  Steve felt so utterly lost.  Hands itched to reach out, to give comfort but he wasn’t sure if he had any to give.  He wasn’t sure how to even process let alone help her process.  And worse, the intrusive thought that pushed to the front of his mind, the one that tormented him more than any other thought he’d had of the woman beside him over the past few days.  

“Did you know?” he croaked out after a long silence.  And it was more accusatory than he had hoped, but then… she had lied.  About _everything_ .  She had been sent to seduce him, to kill him… and God how it made him sick to think that there were lines her people would be willing to cross.  His child, his DNA… the serum that ran through his blood that he would most likely have passed long.     
  
Had she known.  Had _this_ been the plan.     
  
Fingers flexed against his knee, dug in and released.   “Natalia…” he started after a long moment passed in silence and only then did he dare look at her beside him.  “Did you know?”

Another long moment passed.  Natalia shook her head.  “They -” she paused.  “It wasn’t supposed to be possible,” she turned her head to look at Steve.  Held his gaze so that she would be certain her words were understood.  That the _weight_ of them was known.  That the truth of it was known.  “They made certain it wouldn’t be possible,” she said.  The words spoken plainly but still burdened.  Her eyes clouded over as she remembered, recalled the day that particular future had been ripped from her without her consent.   _Graduation_.  Like it had been a thing to celebrate instead of what it truly was.  An invasion beyond compared on a girl who wasn’t enough of a woman to even know what was being taken from her.  

But then she’d never truly known _anything_ that had been taken from her until long after it was gone, had she.  Wasn’t that the goddamn tragedy of it all.     
  
Something that had never mattered until she watched the blood swirl with water and sink down the drain.   
  
Steve sucked in a breath as the reality of it hit him.   _She lied_ darted around the fringes of his mind.   _She lied about everything_.  But still - he couldn’t, wouldn’t, pass this off as another.  Not with the haunted look in Natalia’s eyes, not with the way her fingers clenched the cup like a lifeline.  Not with the memory of the state of shock he’d found her in the night before.  

He was quiet for a long time before he spoke again.  “Why didn’t you kill me?” he asked finally.  

Natalia stiffened at the question.  “I don’t know,” she answered.  

Steve sucked in a breath and pressed his lips together.  “Stop lying, you owe me that much at least,” he said lowly.  The words sounded cruel once out but he didn’t try to take them back.  He realized he didn’t _want_ to take them back.

Natalia glanced at him for a moment, surprise in her eyes at the outburst.  She steadied her gaze back forward.  “I -” she paused, bit on the inside of her lip until she tasted blood and started again.  “I was a child when they took me. The Red Room.  They stripped away everything I had ever been, everything I had ever wanted to be and replaced it with what they wanted.  They trained me not to feel, not to think outside of the orders they gave.  They trained me to kill and when they were done they sold me off to the highest bidder and I had someone new pulling the strings.”  She paused, pressed her lips together and dared a glance at Steve beside her.  “I have killed so many people, Steve.  I have more red in my ledger than I can ever hope to attone for.  All I have ever known for so long were others like me - killers and those who made them.  And then there was you,” she let out a slow breath.  “Steve,  you were the first _good_ person I met in a long, long, time.”   
  
She turned her gaze away from Steve and flexed her fingers against the mug.  “I screwed up, I let myself feel, I let myself blur the lines between the lie and the truth… I let myself care about you and even though I knew what I had to do… I _couldn’t_ .  Killing you was something I wouldn’t be able to walk away from and I knew that.  You were too good, you meant too much and I - I loved you for it, because of it.”   
  
Steve watched her as she talked, let the words sink in.  He shifted, slid a leg out and fished in the pocket of his jeans.  He pulled out the ring.  The one he had bought for a woman who didn’t exist, the one Natalia had found… the one she had _kept_ .  He held it between thumb and forefinger and lifted it so she could see.  “You kept this,” he stated.     
  
Natalia nodded.   
  
Steve’s free hand took her mug and set it down beside them.  He took her hand, uncurled it and set the ring in her palm.  “Steve…” she breathed out as she watched and he shook his head.

He looked up at her.  “The woman I bought this for doesn’t exist - I know that,” he started.  Of course knowing it and moving forward from it were two very different things.  Steve knew it would be a long time coming on the second part.  He knew that everything that had happened would haunt him for longer than he could even conceive at the moment and he knew it would haunt Natalia too.  In ways they couldn’t even fathom right then in the wake of it.  

He pressed his lips into a line that might have been something close to a small smile in any other circumstance.  “And maybe Natalia doesn’t really exist either,”  he added.  Natalia who had been more pawn than person. Natalia who had never really been given a choice in a damn thing in her life until she chose not to kill him.   “Maybe the truth of you is somewhere in the middle or maybe it’s someone else entirely,” he paused.  “I think though that it’s time you get to decide who you are.” He curled her hand around the ring in her palm and gave it a squeeze.  “There’s one true thing I know about you - you’re more than what they made you.  You are worth more than what they told you you were.”  
  
Steve is still for a moment, eyes down on his hand still curled around Natalia’s.  “This is yours, not because I want to marry you or because of who I thought you were - but because I want you to remember what you’re capable of.  I want you to remember that you felt _something_ , that you were willing to sacrifice your life for mine.  And I think - well - I think that’s a pretty good place to start in figuring out the rest of who you are,” he glanced up as he dropped his hand from hers.     
  
Natalia’s expression softened at the words as she met his gaze.  It would be nice she realized, to have his faith in that.  In her, in the idea that Fury might look at her and even see someone worth more than the death she was sure he’d rather see for her.  But maybe it wasn’t about her having faith in any of that, maybe Steve having faith in it was enough.  “Thank you,” she said softly, surprised herself by the sincerity of it.

They held each other’s gaze for a moment before Steve let an arm slide around behind her and she rested her head on his shoulder.  They’re quiet, a moment stolen before the reality would come crashing down around them.  A moment all their own.  A moment to exist in a space beside each other, to find some small semblance of comfort in the wake of the night before.  And it’s not much, in the grand scheme of things, but right then it was enough.  It was all they would get, it _had_ to be enough.   
  
“No one can ever know,” Steve said after a while, his voice soft as he broke the silence that had settled between them.     
  
Natalia nodded against his shoulder, instantly understanding what he meant.  It was their secret, the one they would take to the grave.  A loss that no one other than them would ever know about.  A loss that would bind them long after they said goodbye here, long after Steve had returned to a life without her.  This was theirs to bear and theirs alone.  Everything else - every particular of their “relationship”, would be debriefed and dissected.  Put on record and filed away under their names.  Analyzed for weakness, for how and why _Captain America_ was played the fool and for measures to make sure it didn’t happen again.

But this - this was theirs.  

“Cross my heart,” she breathed out, turned her face into Steve’s shirt with fingers curled into the fabric.  She felt the soft brush of lips against the top of her head and she sighed out.  Her hands uncurled and she lifted her head, stood, and walked out of the kitchen.  
  
Hours later she found herself in the living room - exhausted in a way she hadn’t known in years.   _Terrified_ in a way she hadn’t known in years.  Standing on the proverbial edge and moments away from jumping.  She knew she couldn’t control Fury’s decision, that it was his alone.  But she could _try_ , that much she could do.  She could try for herself, for Steve - for the faith he had in her and the person he thought she was capable of becoming.  For the loss they had shared and for the chance to keep Steve from losing _more_.  

And so she stood tall, she stood proud, and she offered her hand to the man in front of her and said, “I’m ready to talk.”  
  
Scrutinized didn’t even begin to describe it as Fury looked her over.  Agonizing was an understatement for the long moment that passed as he did.  But she didn’t waver, she didn’t flinch.  She wasn’t even sure if she _breathed_ until Fury’s hand extended and shook her own.     
  
“I’m prepared to listen, Miss Romanova,” he answered - tone gruff but even.

It wasn’t the end, not by a long shot she knew that.  It wasn’t a guarantee either.  It didn’t immediately mean safety and being spared the death she had been certain was coming for her.  But it was a chance.  One she wanted to take.

It was, more than anything, a _start_.  

 

* * *

 

  
  
Steve wasn’t allowed to see her once they returned.  Natalia pulled away by Fury the instant they arrive back to headquarters.  And he’s not surprised.  They’re both so completely compromised that there is no other call to make in that regard.  He didn’t even put up a fight, it was enough just to know Fury would try.  

It still hurt though, ached, this constant throb of wonder and longing as the days passed into weeks.  As the distance stretched between them.    
  
He’s not kept in the dark entirely.  Fury was kind enough to let him know that she was alive, cooperative.  That she had given intel that was useful.  That he saw _potential_ in her.  

It was more than Steve could have hoped for.  
  
He knew that the distance was best - as the days turned to weeks and the weeks turned to months.  The space allowed him time to decompress.  Sort of.  It was never going to be _better_ and he knew that.  Months later and he still found himself reaching out for a ghost in the middle of the night.  But there’s a normalcy that started to settle in.  There’s a new apartment to live in but not _really_ live in after a brief return to his old one made it clear that he could not stay there.  He pushed himself back into his work, back into missions and the life he used to lead.     
  
The pain and the grief, it gets bottled up with the rest of it.  Tucked away in the corners of his mind to be dealt with on that elusive _someday_ that never really comes.  The anger gets channeled into something more useful.  The bits of himself that Natalie had made whole unraveled once more.  

And it takes every ounce of self control he had not to snap on Rumlow every goddamn minute of every damn day.  The memory of that vivid bruise on the skin of Natalia’s abdomen, the stark red on white sheets, the _everything_ of that night that threatened to break him every time he looked at the other man’s face.   
  
Natalia, he is told one day, was partnered with Clint Barton.  It was a good fit he figured.  Barton had come in under questionable circumstances too.  Barton seemed like a good man.  Steve didn’t trust much those days so he hoped, rather than trusted, that Barton would do right by her.     
  
The spring he had met Natalie had faded into a summer that felt more and more like a dream as time passed.  A dream that had become a nightmare as fall hammered down, and it had felt so fitting that winter had come on the heels of it all.  Short days and long nights, dark and cold as he attempted to put his life back together.  But the world around him thawed, the days grew longer and the trees and flowers started to bloom.  The sun showed its face and before he knew it it was spring again.  A season of rebirth and it was that thought he had lost himself to as he stared out the window of his office.  

Until the clack of heels on the tile floor pulled him from it and he turned.  She stood just inside the doorway.  Face at once familiar and a stranger both.  And enough to have his breath lodged somewhere in the back of his throat as he stared at her.  Took in heeled leather boots, black pants, leather jacket… and red hair.  “Your hair,” he blurted out, dumbfounded, after a long moment.  And immediately kicked himself that the first words he spoke to her in six months had been _your hair_.

If it bothered her though, she didn’t show it.  She stepped forward, a shrug as she answered.  “Felt like it was time for a change,” she said.  

And Steve was immediately thrown by the tone in her voice.  Not quite Natalie, not quite Natalia.  Somehow someone different, someone new.  “It looks good,” he offered, lips turned up into what might pass as a smile.  

“Thanks,” she replied, with a curl of her own lips.  

His eyes glanced down to the ID badge at her hip, clipped to the pocket of her jacket.   _Natasha Romanoff, Agent._  He looked back up at her.  Natasha.  And he’s reminded of that morning in the safe house - somewhere in the middle.  He could see it.  The cool and calculated confidence of Natalia, but a hint of the warmth and softness as she looked at him of Natalie.  Natasha.   
  
Steve extended a hand.  “It’s nice to meet you, Agent Romanoff,” he greeted.

Natasha lifted her hand, slipped it into Steve’s and smiled.  “Likewise, Captain Rogers.”  She held his gaze a moment, hand still clasped in his, before she stepped forward and leaned up to brush her lips lightly against his cheek.  “Thank you,” she said softly as she pulled back.    
  
Steve squeezed her hand before he let it go.  It wasn’t perfect, it was far from it.  They would never be able to go back and he knew that.  There was only the unknown of forward but it was what it was.  A start.  He nodded.  “I’ll see you around?” he asked.     
  
Natasha smiled.  “Count on it, Rogers,” she replied and gave him one last look before she turned to leave.  

And as she did a familiar scent lingered after her… lilacs Steve realized with a small smile.  He turned, letting his gaze fall out the window once more.  Over the city that stretched out past the river, over the trees that had just started to bloom again.  Spring.  Rebirth.  

A start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thank you to anyone who stuck with this mess. <3


End file.
